m ■ ■. ■ ■. ■■■.■ .' -=B=-_: :r';'. ; :; J LMannc ^Biological Laboratory Library 'Mloods Me, Massachusetts Voyages • of • (Exploration Collected (Newco/ab Ohompson Montgomery (1B07-WS6) ^Philadelphia architect, nevheri of Qhomas ^Harrison Montgomery (M3-1912), had been farther north, but she had drifted there stern foremost, a plaything of the ice. Again the little black, strenuous Roosevelt had proven herself the champion. There are some feelings which a man cannot express in words. Such were mine as the mooring lines went out onto the ice foot at Cape Sheridan. We had kept the scheduled time of our program and had negotiated the first part of the difficult proposition — that of driving a ship from New York to a point within striking distance of the Pole. All the uncertainties of ice navigation — the possible loss of the Roosevelt and a large quantity of our supplies — were at an end. Another source of gratification was the realiza- tion that this last voyage had further accentuated the value of detailed experience in this arduous work. Notwithstanding the delays which had sometimes seemed endless, we had made the voyage with only a small percentage of the anxieties and injury to the ship which we had experienced on the former upward journey in 1905. Lying there, with the northern bounds of all known lands — except those close to us — lying far to the 122 THE NORTH POLE south, we were in a position properly to attack the second part of our problem, the projection of a sledge party from the ship to the Pole itself. This rounding of Cape Sheridan was not the ultimate achievement probable. So great was our relief at having driven the Roose- velt through the ice of Robeson Channel, that as soon as the mooring lines were out at Cape Sheridan we set to work unloading the ship with light-hearted eager- ness. The Roosevelt was grounded inside the tide crack, and the first things we got ashore were the two hundred and forty-six dogs, which had made the ship a noisy and ill-smelling inferno for the last eighteen days. They were simply dropped over the rail onto the ice, and in a few minutes the shore in all directions was dotted with them, as they ran, leaped and barked in the snow. The decks were washed down with hose, and the work of unloading began. First the sledges came down from the bridge deck, where they had been built during the upward voyage, a fine fleet of twenty-three. We wanted to get the ship well inside the ice barrier where she would be really safe, so we lightened her that she might float with the high tide. We made chutes from planks, and down these we slid the oil cases from the main deck and the hold. It was necessary to work carefully, as the ice was thin at that season. Later two or three sledge loads of sup- plies broke through, and the Eskimos with them; but as the water was only five or six feet deep, and the supplies were packed in tins, no serious damage was done. THE ROOSEVELT ON SEPTEMBER 1L2, 1908 Marie Ahnighito Peary's Birthday 'PEARY" SLEDGES ON BOARD THE ROOSEVELT CAPE SHERIDAN AT LAST 123 While the oil was being unloaded, a party of men went out with ice chisels, poles, saws, and so forth, chopping away the ice so that we could warp the Roosevelt in, broadside to the shore. Bartlett and I were determined to get the ship beyond the floe- berg barrier and into the shallow water of the ice- foot. We were not looking forward to another winter of such torment as we had lived through on the last previous expedition, with the ship just on the edge of the ice-foot and subject to every movement of the hostile pack outside. After the oil cases came the tons of whale meat from the quarter-deck, some of it in chunks as large as a Saratoga trunk. It was thrown over the side onto the ice, sledged ashore by the Eskimos, some hun- dred yards over the ice-foot, and heaped in great piles, protected by the bags of coal which had also been taken from the quarter-deck. Then came the whale-boats, which were lowered from the davits and run ashore like sledges. They were later turned bottom side up for the winter and weighted down, so that the wind could not move them. The work of landing the supplies and equipment consumed several days. This is the very first work of every well-managed arctic expedition on reaching winter quarters. With the supplies ashore, the loss of the ship by fire or by crushing in the ice, would mean simply that the party might have to walk home. It would not interfere with the sledge work, nor seri- ously cripple the expedition. Had we lost the Roose- velt at Cape Sheridan, we should have spent the winter in the box houses which we constructed and in the 124 THE NORTH POLE spring should have made the dash for the Pole just the same. We should then have walked the three hun- dred and fifty miles to Cape Sabine, crossed the Smith Sound ice to Etah, and waited for a ship. The adjacent shore for a quarter of a mile was lined with boxes, each item of provisions having a pile to itself. This packing-box village was chris- tened Hubbard ville, in honor of General Thomas H. Hubbard, president of the Peary Arctic Club. When the boxes which had served as a bed platform in the Eskimo quarters of the Roosevelt's forward deck were removed, the place was swept and scrubbed; then a bed platform was built of boards, divided into sec- tions for the various families and screened in front by curtains. Under the bed platform was an open space, where the Eskimos could keep their cooking utensils and other personal belongings. The fas- tidious reader who is shocked at the idea of keeping frying-pans under the bed should see an Eskimo family in one of their native houses of stone and earth, eight feet across, where meat and drink, men, women, and children are crowded indiscriminately for month upon month in winter. We next landed about eighty tons of coal, so that, in case we should have to live in the box houses, there would be plenty of fuel. At that time of the year it was not very cold. On the 8th of September the ther- mometer stood at 12 above zero, the next day at 4. The heavier cases, containing the tins of bacon, pemmican (the condensed meat food used in the Arctic), flour, et cetera, were utilized ashore like so many blocks of granite in constructing three houses, CAPE SHERIDAN AT LAST 125 about fifteen feet by thirty. All the supplies were especially packed for this purpose, in boxes of speci- fied dimensions — one of the innumerable details which made for the success of the expedition. In building the houses the tops of the boxes were placed inside, the covers removed, and the contents taken out as needed, as from a shelf, the whole house being one large grocery. The roofs were made of sails thrown over boat booms or spars, and later the walls and roof were banked in solidly with snow. Stoves were set up, so that, if everything went well, the houses could be used as workshops during the winter. So here we were, safely bestowed at Cape Sheridan, and the prize seemed already in our grasp. The con- tingencies which had blocked our way in 1906 were all provided for on this last expedition. We knew just what we had to do, and just how to do it. Only a few months of waiting, the fall hunting, and the long, dark winter were all that lay between me and the final start. I had the dogs, the men, the experi- ence, a fixed determination (the same impulse which drove the ships of Columbus across the trackless western sea) — and the end lay with that Destiny which favors the man who follows his faith and his dream to the last breath. CHAPTER XIV IN WINTER QUARTERS WHEN the removal of supplies had lightened the Roosevelt so much that Bartlett got her considerably farther in shore, she lay with her nose pointing almost true north. It cheered us, for this was her constant habit. It seemed almost like the purpose of a living creature. Whenever on the upward voyage — either this time or on her first trip in 1905 — the ship was beset in the ice so that we lost control of her, she always swung around of her own accord and pointed north. When twisting through the ice, if we got caught when the ship was headed east or west, it was only a little while before the pres- sure would swing her round till once more she looked northward. Even on the return journey, in 1906, it was the same — as if the ship realized she had not accomplished her purpose and wanted to go back. The sailors noticed it, and used to talk about it. They said the Roosevelt was not satisfied, that she knew she had not done her work. When we got the vessel as near the shore as pos- sible, the ship's people began to make her ready for the winter. The engine-room force was busy blowing down the boilers, putting the machinery out of commission, removing every drop of water from the pipes and elbows so the cold of winter should not burst them; 126 IN WINTER QUARTERS 127 and the crew was busy taking down the sails, slacking off the rigging, so the contraction from the intense cold of winter should not cause damage, with a thousand and one details of like character. Before the sails were taken down, they were all set, that they might be thoroughly dried out by sun and wind. The ship was a beautiful sight, held fast in the embrace of the ice and with her cables out, but with every sail filled with wind like a yacht in a race. While this work was going on small hunting parties of Eskimos were sent to the Lake Hazen region, but they met with little success. A few hares were secured, but musk-oxen seemed to have vanished. This troubled me, for it raised a fear that the hunting of the former expedition had killed off the game, or driven it away. The Eskimo women set their fox traps all along the shore for five miles or so each way, and they were more successful than the men, obtaining some thirty or forty foxes in the course of the fall and winter. The women also went on fishing trips to the ponds of the neighborhood, and brought in many mottled beauties. The Eskimo method of fishing is interesting. The fish in that region will not rise to bait but are captured by cutting a hole in the ice and dropping in a piece of ivory carved in the shape of a small fish. When the fish rises to examine this visitor, it is secured with a spear. The Eskimo fish spear has a central shaft with a sharp piece of steel, usually an old nail, set in the end. On each side is a piece of deer antler pointing downward, lashed onto the shaft with a fine line, and sharp nails, pointing inward, are set in the two frag- 128 THENORTHPOLE ments of antler. When this spear is thrust down on the fish, the antlers spread as they strike the fish's back; he is impaled by the sharp point above him, and the sharp barbs on either side keep him from getting away. The char (?) of North Grant Land is a beautiful mottled fish, weighing sometimes as much as eleven or twelve pounds. I believe that the pink fiber of these fish — taken from water never warmer than 35° or 40° above zero — is the firmest and sweetest fish fiber in the world. During my early expeditions in this region, I would spear one of these beauties and throw him on the ice to freeze, then pick him up and fling him down so as to shatter the flesh under the skin, lay him on the sledge, and as I walked away pick out morsels of the pink flesh and eat them as one would eat strawberries. In September of 1900 with these fish a party of six men and twenty-three dogs were supported for some ten days, until we found musk-oxen. We speared the fish in the way the Eskimos taught us, using the regular native spear. The new members of the expedition were naturally anxious to go sight-seeing. MacMillan had an attack of the grip, but Borup and Dr. Goodsell scoured the surrounding country. Hubbardville could not boast its Westminster Abbey nor its Arc de Triomphe, but there were Petersen's grave and the Alert and Roosevelt cairns, both in the neighborhood, and visible from the ship. About a mile and a half southwest from our winter quarters was the memorial headboard of Petersen, the IN WINTER QUARTERS 129 Danish interpreter of the English expedition of 1875-76. He died as the result of exposure on a sledge trip, and was buried there abreast of the Alert's winter quarters. The grave is covered with a large flat slab, and at the head is a board covered with a copper sheet from the boiler room of the Alert, with the inscription punched in it. There may be a lonelier grave somewhere on earth, but if so I have no knowledge of it. No explorer, not even the youngest and most thoughtless, could stand before that "mute reminder of heroic bones" without a feeling of reverence and awe. There is something menacing in that dark silhouette against the white snow, as if the mysterious Arctic were re- minding the intruder that he might be chosen next to remain with her forever. Not far away is the Alert's cairn, from which I took the British record in 1905, a copy of it being re- placed by Ross Marvin, according to the custom of explorers. In view of his tragic end, in the spring of 1909, the farthest north of all deaths known to man, this visit of Marvin's to the neighborhood of Petersen's grave has a peculiar pathos. The Roosevelt cairn, erected by Marvin in 1906, is directly abreast of the ship's location at Cape Sheridan in 1905-06 and about one mile inland. It is on a high point of land, about four hundred feet above the water. The record is in a prune can, at the bottom of the pile of stones, and was written by Marvin himself in lead-pencil. The cairn is sur- mounted by a cross, made of the oak plank from our sledge runners. It faces north, and at the intersection of the upright and the crosspiece there is a large 130 THENORTHPOLE "R" cut in the wood. When I went up to see it, soon after our arrival this last time, the cross was leaning toward the north, as if from the intentness of its three years' northward gazing. On the 12th of September we had a holiday, it being the fifteenth birthday of my daughter, Marie Ahnighito, who was born at Anniversary Lodge, Greenland — the most northerly born of all white children. Ten years before, we had celebrated her fifth birthday on the Windward. Many icebergs had drifted down the channels since then, and I was still following the same ideal which had given my daughter so cold and strange a birthplace. There was a driving snowstorm that day, but Bart- lett dressed the ship in all the flags, the full inter- national code, and the bright colors of the bunting made a striking contrast to the gray-white sky. Percy, the steward, had baked a special birthday cake, and we had it, surmounted with fifteen blazing candles, on our supper table. Just after breakfast the Eskimos came in with a polar bear, a female yearling six feet long, and I determined to have it mounted for Marie's birthday bear. It should be standing and advancing, one paw extended as if to shake, the head on one side and a bearish smile on the face. The bear provided us with juicy steaks, and we had a special tablecloth, our best cups and saucers, new spoons, et cetera. A day or two later we began to get the dogs made fast, in preparation for the first sledge parties. There was now sufficient snow to begin the transportation of supplies toward Cape Columbia, and Black Cliffs Bay was frozen over. The Eskimos tied the dogs, in IN WINTER QUARTERS 131 teams of five or six, to stakes driven into the shore or holes cut in the ice. They made a fine picture, looking shoreward from the ship — nearly two hundred and fifty of them — and their barking could be heard at all hours. It must be remembered that day and night were still determined only by the clock, as the ever-circling sun had not yet set. By reason of the industry of all hands on the upward voyage, everything was now ready for the fall work. The Eskimos had built the sledges and made the dog harnesses, and Matt Henson had finished the "kitchen boxes," which enclosed our oil stoves in the field, while the busy needles of the Eskimo women had provided every man with a fur outfit. In the North we wear the regular Eskimo garments, with certain modifications. First of all, there is the kooletak, a fur jacket with no buttons, which goes on over the head. For summer wear the Eskimos make it of sealskin, but for winter it is made of fox or deerskin. For our own use, we had jackets made of Michigan sheepskin. We took the skins up with us, and the women made the garments, but when it was very cold we wore the deerskin or foxskin jacket of the Eskimos. Attached to this jacket is a hood, and around the face is a thick roll made of fox-tails. The ahteah is a shirt, usually of fawn skin, with the hair inside, and the Eskimos wear it even in summer. In some of the photographs of natives, the skilful piecing together of the skins in the shirt can be traced. The Eskimo women are more adept at this work than are 132 THE NORTH POLE any of the furriers of civilization. They sew the skins with the sinew taken from the back of the deer — the jumping muscle. It is absolutely unbreakable, and moisture does not rot it. For the coarser work of sewing boots, canoes, and tents, they use the sinew from the tail of the narwhal. The sewing is now done with the steel needles I have given them; but in former years they used a punch made of bone, passing the sinew through the hole, as a shoemaker uses a "waxed end." They do not cut the skins with shears, as that would injure the fur; but with a "woman's knife," similar to an old-fashioned mincemeat chopper. The shaggy fur trousers are invariably made from the skins of the polar bear. Then there are stockings of hareskin, and the kamiks, or boots, of sealskin, soled with the heavier skin of the square-flipper seal. On the ship, on sledge journeys, and in all the field work of the winter, the regular footgear of the Eskimos was worn. Add the warm fur mittens, and the winter wardrobe is complete. It may reasonably be inquired whether the close housing for so long a time of such a considerable num- ber of human beings did not result in personal friction, due to the inevitable accumulation of a thousand and one petty irritations. To some extent it did. But the principal members of the expedition were men of such character that they were able to exercise an admirable self-restraint that prevented any unpleasant results of consequence. Practically the only trouble of a personal sort that was of any importance occurred between one of the sailors and an Eskimo whom we called Harridan. IN WINTER QUARTERS 133 Harrigan acquired this sobriquet on account of his ear for music. The crew used to be fond of singing that energetic Irish air which was popular for some years along Broadway and which concludes ungram- matically with the words "Harrigan — that's me." The Eskimo in question seemed fascinated by this song and in time learned those three words and practised them with so much assiduity that he was ultimately able to sing them in a manner not wholly uncouth. In addition to his musical leanings, Harrigan was a practical joker, and on one occasion he was exer- cising his humorous talents in the forecastle to the considerable discomfort of one of the crew. Ultimately the sailor, unable to rid himself of his persecutor in any other way, resorted to the use of his fists. The Eskimos, while good wrestlers, are far from adepts at the "manly art of self-defense," and the result was that Harrigan emerged from the forecastle with a well-blackened eye and a keen sense of having been ill used. He complained bitterly of his treatment, but I gave him a new shirt and told him to keep away from the forecastle where the sailors were, and in a few hours he had forgotten it like a school boy, so that the affair passed off without leaving any permanent ill feeling, and soon Harrigan was again cheerfully croaking his "Harrigan — that's me." CHAPTER XV THE AUTUMN WORK P I 'HE main purpose of the autumn sledge parties was the transportation to Cape Columbia A of supplies for the spring sledge journey toward the Pole. Cape Columbia, ninety miles north- west from the ship, had been chosen because it was the most northerly point of Grant Land, and because it was far enough west to be out of the ice current setting down Robeson Channel. From there we could strike straight north over the ice of the Polar Sea. The moving of thousands of pounds of supplies for men and dogs for a distance of ninety miles, under the rigorous conditions of the Arctic, presented prob- lems for calculation. The plan was to establish stations along the route, instead of sending each party through to Cape Columbia and back. The first party was to go to Cape Belknap, about twelve miles from the ship, deposit their supplies, and return the same day. The second party was to go to Cape Richard- son, about twenty miles away, deposit their supplies, return part way and pick up the supplies at Cape Belknap, taking them forward to Cape Richardson. The next station was at Porter Bay, the next at Sail Harbor, the next at Cape Colan, and the final station at Cape Columbia itself. Parties would thus be going 134 THE AUTUMN WORK 135 back and forth the whole time, the trail would con- stantly be kept open, and hunting could be done along the way. The tractive force was, of course, the Eskimo dogs, and sledges were the means of transportation. The sledges were of two types: the Peary sledge, which had never been used before this expedition, and the regular Eskimo sledge, increased somewhat in length for special work. The Peary type of sledge is from twelve to thirteen feet in length, two feet in width, and seven inches in height; the Eskimo type of sledge is nine feet in length, two feet in width, and seven inches in height. Another difference is that the Eskimo sledge is simply two oak runners an inch or an inch and a quarter thick and seven inches wide, shaped at the front to give the easiest curve for pas- sage over the ice, and shod with steel, while the Peary sledge has oak sides rounded, both in front and behind, with two-inch wide bent ash runners attached, the runners being shod with two-inch wide steel shoes. The sides of both are solid, and they are lashed together with sealskin thongs. The Peary sledge is the evolution of twenty-three years of experience in arctic work and is believed to be the strongest and easiest running sledge yet used for arctic traveling. On a level surface this sledge will support ten or twelve hundred pounds. The Eskimos have used their own type of sledge from time immemorial. When they had no wood, before the advent of the white man, they made their sledges of bone — the shoulder-blades of the walrus, and the ribs of the whale, with deer antlers for up-standers. 136 THENORTHPOLE For dog harnesses, I have adopted the Eskimo pattern, but have used different material. The Eskimo harness is made of sealskin — two loops joined by a cross strip at the back of the neck and under the throat. The dog's forelegs pass through the loops, and the ends are joined over the small of the back, where the trace is attached. This harness is very- simple and flexible, and it allows the dog to exert his whole strength. The objection to sealskin as a harness material is a gastronomic one. When the dogs are on short rations they eat their harnesses at night in camp. To obviate this difficulty, I use for the harnesses a special webbing or belting, about two or two and a half inches in width, and replace the cus- tomary rawhide traces of the Eskimos by a braided linen sash cord. The dogs are hitched to the sledge fanwise. The standard team is eight dogs; but for rapid traveling with a heavy load, ten or twelve are sometimes used. They are guided by the whip and the voice. The Es- kimo whip has a lash sometimes twelve, sometimes eighteen, feet long, and so skilful are the Eskimos in its manipulation that they can send the lash flying through the air and reach any part of any particular dog they wish. A white man can learn to use an Eskimo whip, but it takes time. It takes time also to acquire the exact Eskimo accent to the words "How-eh, how-eh, how-eh," meaning to the right; "Ash-oo, ash-oo, ash-oo," to the left; as well as the stand- ard, "Huh, huh, huk" which is equivalent to "go on." Sometimes, when the dogs do not obey, the usual "How-eh, how-eh, how-eh," will reverse its accent, and PEARY 12J ft. Long, 2 ft. Wide, TYPE OF SLEDGE in. High; With Steel Shoes 2 in. Wide ESKIMO TYPE OF SLEDGE USED ON JOURNEY 9 ft. 6 in. Long. 2 ft. Wide, 8 in High; With Steel Shoes I } in. Wide Each ha> Stan lard load of supplies for team and driver for tifty days- pemmican, biscuit, milk, tea, oil, alcohol THE AUTUMN WORK 137 the driver will yell, "How-ooooooo" with an accom- paniment of other words in Eskimo and English which shall be left to the imagination of the reader. The temperature of a new man trying to drive a team of Eskimo dogs is apt to be pretty high. One is almost inclined to believe with the Eskimos that demons take possession of these animals. Sometimes they seem to be quite crazy. A favorite trick of theirs is to leap over and under and around each other, getting their traces in a snarl beside which the Gordian knot would be as nothing. Then, in a temperature anywhere between zero and 60° below, the driver has to remove his heavy mittens and disentangle the traces with his bare hands, while the dogs leap and snap and bark and seem to mock him. And this brings me to an incident which practically always happens when a new man starts out to drive Eskimo dogs. A member of the expedition — I, who have also suffered, will not give his name away — started out with his dog team. Some hours later shouts and hila- rious laughter were heard from the Eskimos. It was not necessary to inquire what had happened. The dog team had returned to the ship — without the sledge. The new dog driver, in attempting to unsnarl the traces of his dogs, had let them get away from him. Another hour or two went by, and the man himself returned, crestfallen and angry clear through. He was greeted by the derisive shouts of the Eskimos, whose respect for the white man is based primarily on the white man's skill in the Eskimo's own field. The man gathered up his dogs again and went back for the sledge. 138 THE NORTH POLE The gradual breaking in of the new men is one of the purposes of the short trips of the fall. They have to become inured to such minor discomforts as frosted toes and ears and noses, as well as the loss of their dogs. They have to learn to keep the heavy sledges right side up when the going is rough and sometimes, before a man gets hardened, this seems almost to rip the muscles from the shoulder blades. Moreover, they have to learn how to wear their fur clothing. On the 16th of September the first train of supplies was sent to Cape Belknap: Marvin, Dr. Goodsell, and Borup, with thirteen Eskimos, sixteen sledges, and about two hundred dogs. They were an imposing procession as they started northwest along the ice- foot, the sledges going one behind the other. It was a beautiful day — clear, calm, and sunny, — and we could hear, when they were a long distance away, the shouts of the Eskimo drivers, "Huh, huh, huk" " Ash-oo" "Ilow-eli" the cracking of the whips, and the crisp rustle and creaking of the sledges over the snow. It is often asked how we keep warm when riding on the sledges. We do not ride, save in rare instances. We walk, and when the going is hard we have to help the dogs by lifting the sledges over rough places. The first party returned the same day with the empty sledges, and the next day two Eskimo hunting parties came in with three deer, six hares, and two eider ducks. Neither party had seen any tracks of musk- oxen. On the 18th, the second sledge party was sent out to carry fifty-six cases of crew pemmican to Cape Richardson, where they were to camp, bring up the biscuit from Cape Belknap to Cape Richardson the THE AUTUMN WORK 139 following day, and then return to the ship. That gave them one night in the field. A man's first night in a canvas tent in the Arctic is likely to be rather wakeful. The ice makes mysteri- ous noises; the dogs bark and fight outside the tent where they are tethered; and as three Eskimos and one white man usually occupy a small tent, and the oil-stove is left burning all night, the air, notwithstand- ing the cold, is not over-pure; and sometimes the Eski- mos begin chanting to the spirits of their ancestors in the middle of the night, which is, to say the least, trying. Sometimes, too, the new man's nerves are tried by hearing wolves howl in the distance. The tents are specially made. They are of light- weight canvas, and the floor of the tent is sewed directly into it. The fly is sewed up, a circular open- ing cut in it, just large enough to admit a man, and that opening fitted with a circular flap which is closed by a draw-string, making the tent absolutely snow- proof. An ordinary tent, when the snow is flying, would be filled in no time. The tent is pyramidal, with one pole in the center, and the edges are usually held down by the sledge runners or by snowshoes used as tent pegs. The men sleep on the floor in their clothes, with a musk-ox skin under, and a light deerskin over them. I have not used sleeping bags since my arctic trip of 1891-92. The "kitchen box" for our sledge journeys is simply a wooden box containing two double-burner oil-stoves, with four-inch wicks. The two cooking pots are the bottoms of five-gallon coal-oil tins, fitted with covers. When packed they are turned bottom 140 THENORTHPOLE side up over each stove, and the hinged cover of the wooden box is closed. On reaching camp, whether tent or snow igloo, the kitchen box is set down inside, the top of the box is turned up and keeps the heat of the stove from melting the wall of the igloo or burning the tent; the hinged front of the box is turned down and forms a table. The two cooking pots are filled with pounded ice and put on the stoves; when the ice melts one pot is used for tea, and the other may be used to warm beans, or to boil meat if there is any. Each man has a quart cup for tea, and a hunting knife which serves many purposes. He does not carry anything so polite as a fork, and one teaspoon is considered quite enough for a party of four. Each man helps himself from the pot — sticks in his knife and fishes out a piece of meat. The theory of field work is that there shall be two meals a day, one in the morning and one at night. As the days grow short, the meals are taken before light and after dark, leaving the period of light entirely for work. Sometimes it is necessary to travel for twenty -four hours without stopping for food. The Cape Richardson party returned on the even- ing of the 19th, and was sent out again on the 21st, nineteen Eskimos and twenty-two sledges, to take 6,600 pounds of dog pemmican to Porter Bay. MacMillan, being still under the weather with the grip, missed this preliminary training; but I felt certain that he would overtake the experience of the others as soon as he was able to travel. When the third party returned, on the 24th, they brought back the meat and skins of fourteen deer. a a t- .2P* CS .Ed < -- 0< *> . a -j X W Sa P Ex £ O.a 3 -.£ O S ss '.< THE AUTUMN WORK 141 On the 28th there was a general exodus from the ship: Henson, Ootah, Alletah, and Inighito were to hunt on the north side of Lake Hazen; Marvin, Pood- loonah, Seegloo, and Arco on the east end and the south side of Lake Hazen; and Bartlett, with Pan- ikpah, Inighito, Ookeyah, Dr. Goodsell, with Inighito, Keshungwah, Ky ootah, and Borup, with Karko, Taw- chingwah, and Ahwatingwah, were to go straight through to Cape Columbia. I had planned from the beginning to leave most of the hunting and other field work to the younger members of the expedition. Twenty odd years of arctic experience had dulled for me the excitement of everything but a polar-bear chase; the young men were eager for the work; there was much to do on board ship in planning for the spring, and I wished to conserve my energies for the supreme effort. There was no systematic training, because I do not believe in it. My body has always been able thus far to follow my will no matter what the demands might be, and my winter's work was largely a matter of refine- ment of equipment, and of mathematical calculations of pounds of supplies and miles of distance. It was the lack of food which had forced us to turn back at 87° 6'. Hunger, not cold, is the dragon which guards the Rhinegold of the Arctic. I did allow myself one break in the monotony of ship life — a trip to Clements Markham Inlet, in October. Ever since April, 1902, when I had looked around the angle of Cape Hecla into the unexplored depths of this great fiord, I had had a longing to pene- trate it. On the previous expedition I had started 142 THENORTHPOLE twice with that purpose, but had been prevented from carrying it out, partly on account of bad weather, partly by reason of my anxiety for the Roosevelt, which I had left in a precarious position. But now the Roosevelt was safe; and though the sun was circling near the horizon and the winter night would soon be upon us, I decided to make the trip. On the 1st of October I left the ship with three Eskimos, Egingwah, Ooblooyah, and Koolatoonah, three sledges with teams of ten dogs each, and sup- plies for two weeks only. With the sledges thus lightly loaded, and the trail broken for us by the parties which had preceded us, we made rapid progress, reaching Porter Bay, thirty-five miles from the ship, for our first camp in a few hours. Here we found two Eskimos, Onwagipsoo and Wesharkoopsee, who had been sent out a day or two before. Onwagipsoo went back to the ship, but Wesharkoopsee we took along with us to carry a load of supplies to Sail Harbor, which we expected to reach on the next march; from there he also would return to the ship. Our camp at Porter Bay was in the permanent tent which had been erected there by the first of the autumn parties, the canvas tent with the sewed-in floor which has already been described. It was not very cold that night, and we slept comfortably after a hearty supper of beans and tea. Beans and tea! Perhaps it does not sound like a Lucullan feast, but after a day in the field in Grant Land it tastes like one. CHAPTER XVI THE BIGGEST GAME IN THE ARCTIC WE slept splendidly on that banquet, and, breaking out early the next morning, we passed up the ice of Porter Bay to its head, then, taking to the land, crossed the five-mile- wide isthmus which separates Porter Bay from the head of James Ross Bay. Every foot of this route was familiar to me and rich with memories. Reaching the other side, we descended to the ice again and made rapid progress along the western shore. The dogs were lively and well-fed, trotting along with tails and ears erect; the weather was good, and the sun, now low on the horizon, cast long, fantastic shadows on the ice from every man and dog. Suddenly the quick eyes of Egingwah spied a moving speck on the slope of the mountain to our left. " Tooktoo," he cried, and the party came to an instant standstill. Knowing that the successful pur- suit of a single buck reindeer might mean a long run, I made no attempt to go after him myself; but I told Egingwah and Ooblooyah, my two stalwart, long- legged youngsters, to take the 40-82 Winchesters and be off. At the word they were flying across country, eager as dogs loosed from the traces, crouching low and run- ning quickly. They took a course which would intercept the deer a little farther along the slope of the mountain. 143 144 THENORTHPOLE I watched them through my glasses. The deer, when he caught sight of them, started off leisurely in another direction, looking back every now and then, suspiciously alert. When the deer halted suddenly and swung round facing them, it was clear that they had given the magic call taught by Eskimo father to Eskimo son through generation after generation, the imitation call at which every buck reindeer stops instantly — a peculiar hissing call like the spitting of a cat, only more lingering. The two men leveled their rifles, and the magnifi- cent buck went down in his tracks. The dogs had been watching, with heads and ears erect; but at the report of the rifles they swung sharply to the shore, and the next instant we were hurrying across the rocks and over the snow, the dogs dragging the sledges as if they had been empty. When we reached the two hunters they were standing patiently beside the deer. I had told them not to disturb him, as some good photographs were desired. He was a beautiful creature, almost snow- white, with magnificent branching antlers. When the photographs were taken, all four of the men set to work, skinning and cutting him up. The scene is vivid in memory: the towering moun- tains on both sides of James Ross Bay, with the snow- covered foreshore stretching down to the white surface of the bay; in the south the low-lying sun, a great glare of vivid yellow just showing through the gap of the divide, the air full of slowly dropping frost crystals; and the four fur-clad figures grouped around the deer, with the dogs and the sledges at a little distance POLAR BEAR, ARRANGED BY "FROZEN TAXIDERMY" AND PHOTO- GRAPHED BY FLASHLIGHT BIGGEST GAME IN ARCTIC 145 — the only signs of life in that great white wilder- ness. When the deer was skinned and dressed, the pelt was carefully rolled and put on one of the sledges, the meat was made into a pile for Wesharkoopsee to take back to the ship when he returned from Sail Harbor with empty sledge, and we pushed along the west- ern shore of the bay; then, taking to the land again, still westward across this second peninsula and low divide, till we came to the little bight, called Sail Harbor by the English, on the western side of Parry Peninsula. Here, out at the mouth of the harbor, under the lee of the protecting northern point, we made our second camp. Wesharkoopsee deposited his load of supplies, and I wrote a note for Bartlett, who was west of us on his way to Cape Columbia. That night we had deer steak for supper — a feast for a king. After a few hours' sleep we started, straight as the crow flies, across the eastern end of the great glacial fringe, heading for the mouth of Clements Markham Inlet. Reaching the mouth of the inlet, we kept on down its eastern shore, finding very good going; for the tides rising in the crack next the shore had saturated the overlying snow, then freezing had formed a narrow but smooth surface for the sledges. A part of this shore was musk-ox country, and we scanned it carefully, but saw none of the animals. Some miles down the bay we came upon the tracks of a couple of deer. A little farther on we were elec- 146 THENORTHPOLE trified by a tense whisper from the ever sharp-sighted Egingwah : " Nanooksoah I " He was pointing excitedly toward the center of the fiord, and following the direction of his finger we saw a cream-colored spot leisurely moving toward the mouth of the fiord — a polar bear ! If there is anything that starts the blood lust in an Eskimo's heart more wildly than the sight of a polar bear, I have yet to discover it. Hardened as I am to arctic hunting, I was thrilled myself. While I stood in front of the dogs with a whip in each hand, to keep them from dashing away — for the Eskimo dog knows the meaning of "nanooksoah" as well as his master — the three men were throwing things off the sledges as if they were crazy. When the sledges were empty, Ooblooyah's team shot by me, with Ooblooyah at the up-standers. Eging- wah came next, and I threw myself on his sledge as it flew past. Behind us came Koolatoonah with the third team. The man who coined the phrase "greased lightning" must have ridden on an empty sledge be- hind a team of Eskimo dogs on the scent of a polar bear. The bear had heard us, and was making for the opposite shore of the fiord with prodigious bounds. I jumped to the up-standers of the flying sledge, leaving Egingwah to throw himself on it and get his breath, and away we went, wild with excitement, across the snow-covered surface of the fiord. When we got to the middle the snow was deeper, and the dogs could not go so fast, though they strained BIGGEST GAME IN ARCTIC 147 ahead with all their might. Suddenly they scented the trail — and then neither deep snow nor anything else could have held them. Ooblooyah, with a crazy team and only himself at the up-standers, distanced the rest of us, arriving at the farther shore almost as soon as the leaping bear. He loosed his dogs imme- diately, and we could see the bear in the distance, followed by minute dots that looked hardly larger than mosquitoes swarming up the steep slope. Before our slower teams got to the shore, Ooblooyah had reached the top of the slope, and he signaled us to go around, as the land was an island. When we reached the other side, we found where the bear had descended to the ice again and kept on across the remaining width of the fiord to the western shore, followed by Ooblooyah and his dogs. A most peculiar circumstance, commented on by Egingwah as we flew along, was that this bear, con- trary to the custom of bears in Eskimo land, did not stop when the dogs reached him, but kept right on traveling. This to Egingwah was almost certain proof that the great devil himself — terrible Tornarsuk — was in that bear. At the thought of chasing the devil, my sledge companion grew even more excited. On the other side of the island the snow was deeper and our progress slower, and when we reached the western shore of the fiord, up which, as on the island, we had seen from a distance the bear and Ooblooyah 's dogs slowly climbing, both we and our dogs were pretty well winded. But we were encouraged by hear- ing the barking of the free dogs up somewhere among the cliffs. This meant that the bear had at last been 148 THE NORTH POLE brought to bay. When we reached the shore our dogs were loosed from the sledges. They swarmed up the hot trail, and we followed as best we could. A little farther on we came to a deep canon, and as we could tell by the sounds, the dogs and the bear were at the bottom. But where we stood the walls were too precipitous for even an Eskimo to descend, and we could not see our quarry. He was evidently under some projecting ledge on our side. Moving up the canon to find a place of descent, I heard Egingwah shout that the bear had started down the canon and was climbing up the other side. Hurry- ing back through the deep snow and over the rough rocks, I suddenly saw the beast, perhaps a hundred yards away, and raised my rifle. But I must have been too much winded to take good aim, for though I fired two shots at him the bear kept right on up the canon side. Surely Tornarsuk was in him! I found that I had given the stumps of both my feet — my toes were frozen off at Fort Conger in 1899 — some severe blows against the rocks; and as they were complaining with vehemence, I decided not to follow the bear any farther along the steep boulder- strewn bluffs. Handing my rifle to Egingwah, I told him and Koolatoonah to go after the bear while I went back down the bluffs to the sledges and followed along the bay ice. But before I had gone far along the bay ice shouting was heard in the distance, and soon an Es- kimo appeared on a summit and waved his hand — a signal that they had bagged the bear. Just ahead, and abreast of where the Eskimo had BIGGEST GAME IN ARCTIC 149 appeared, was the mouth of a ravine, and I stopped the sledge there and waited. In a little while my men appeared slowly working their way down the ravine. The dogs which had been in at the death were attached to the bear, as if he had been a sledge, and they were dragging him after them. It was an interesting scene: the steep and rocky ravine in its torn mantle of snow, the excited dogs straining ahead with their unusual burden, the inert cream-colored, blood-streaked form of the great bear, and the shouting and gesticulating Eskimos. When they finally got the bear down to the shore, and while I was taking photographs of him, the Eski- mos walked up and down excitedly discussing the now certain fact that the devil had been in this animal, or he never would have traveled as he did after the dogs overtook him. The subtleties of arctic demon- ology being beyond the grasp of any mere white man, I did not join in the argument as to whither the devil had betaken himself when the rifle of Ooblooyah laid low his fleshly tenement. Our prize was soon skinned and cut up by the skilful knives of the Eskimos, the meat was piled on the shore for future parties to bring back to the ship, the bearskin was carefully folded on one of the sledges, and we returned to the place where we had first seen the bear, on the other side of the bay. There we found the supplies which had been thrown from the sledges to lighten them for the bear chase; and as the men and dogs were tired out, and we were satisfied with the day's work, we camped on the spot. 150 THENORTHPOLE Our tent was unfolded and set up, the oil-stoves were lighted, and we had a plentiful supply of bear steak — all the juicier, perhaps, for the recent presence of Tornarsuk. CHAPTER XVII MUSK-OXEN AT LAST ON the next march we had gone only some six or seven miles when, rounding a point on the eastern shore of the Inlet, we saw black dots on a distant hillside. " Oomingmuksue! " said Ooblooyah, excitedly, and I nodded to him, well pleased. To the experienced hunter, with one or two dogs, seeing musk-oxen should be equivalent to securing them. There may be traveling over the roughest kind of rough country, with wind in the face and cold in the blood; but the end should always be the trophies of hides, horns, and juicy meat. For myself, I never associate the idea of sport with musk-oxen — too often in the years gone by the sighting of those black forms has meant the differ- ence between life and death. In 1899, in Independence Bay, the finding of a herd of musk-oxen saved the lives of my entire party. On my way back from 87° 6', in 1906, if we had not found musk-oxen on Nares Land, the bones of my party might now be bleaching up there in the great white waste. When we saw the significant black dots in the distance, we headed for them. There were five close together, and another a little way off. When we got within less than a mile, two of the dogs were loosed. 151 152 THENORTHPOLE They were wild with excitement, for they also had seen the black dots and knew what they meant; and as soon as the traces were unfastened they were off — straight as the flight of a homing bee. We followed, at our leisure, knowing that when we arrived the herd would be rounded up, ready for our rifles. A single musk-ox, when he sees the dogs, will make for the nearest cliff and get his back against it; but a herd of them will round up in the middle of a plain with tails together and heads toward the enemy. Then the bull leader of the herd will take his place outside the round-up, and charge the dogs. When the leader is shot, another takes his place, and so on. A few minutes later I stood again, as I had stood on previous expeditions, with that bunch of shaggy black forms, gleaming eyes and pointed horns before me — only this time it did not mean life or death. Yet, as I raised my rifle, again I felt clutching at my heart that terrible sensation of life hanging on the accuracy of my aim; again in my bones I felt that gnawing hunger of the past; that aching lust for red, warm, dripping meat — the feeling that the wolf has when he pulls down his quarry. He who has ever been really hungry, either in the Arctic or else- where, will understand this feeling. Sometimes the memory of it rushes over me in unexpected places. I have felt it after a hearty dinner, in the streets of a great city, when a lean-faced beggar has held out his hand for alms. I pulled the trigger, and the bull leader of the herd fell on his haunches. The bullet had found the vulnerable spot under the fore shoulder, where one HEAD OF BULL MUSK-OX KILLED OX PARRY PENINSULA MUSK-OXEN AT LAST 153 should always shoot a musk-ox. To aim at the head is a waste of ammunition. As the bull went down, out from the herd came a cow, and a second shot accounted for her. The others, a second cow and two yearlings, were the work of a few moments; then I left Ooblooyah and Koolatoonah to skin and cut them up, while Egingwah and I started for the single animal, a couple of miles away. As the dogs approached this fellow, he launched up the hill and disappeared over a nearby crest. The light surface snow along the path he had taken was brushed away by the long, matted hair of his sides and belly, which hung down to the ground. The dogs had disappeared after the musk-ox, but Egingwah and myself were guided by their wild bark- ing. Our quarry had taken refuge among the huge rocks in the bottom of a stream-bed, where his rear and both sides were protected, and there he stood at bay with the yelping dogs before him. One shot was enough; and leaving Egingwah to skin and cut up the animal, I started to walk back to the other two men, as it had been decided to camp at the place where they were cutting up the five musk- oxen. But as I emerged from the mouth of the canon, I saw up the valley still another of the big, black shaggy forms. Quickly I retraced my steps, and gathering in two of the dogs, secured this fellow as easily as the others. This last specimen was, however, of peculiar interest, as the white hair of the legs, just above the hoofs, was dashed with a bright red — a marking which I had never before seen in any of these arctic animals. 154 THENORTHPOLE Taking the dogs with me and leaving the musk- ox, I went on to the place selected for a camp. Oob- loyah and Koolatoonah were just finishing cutting up the fifth musk-ox, and were immediately sent off with a sledge and team of dogs, to help Egingwah with the two big bulls. When they were gone, I set up the tent myself and began to prepare the tea for our supper. As soon as the voices of the Eskimos were audible in the distance, I put on the musk-ox steaks to broil and in a few minutes we were enjoying the reward of our labor. Surely this was living on the fat of the land indeed, deer steak the second night, bear steak last night, to-night the luscious meat of the musk-ox! In the morning we continued our course, and dur- ing the day three more musk-oxen were gathered in, the meat being cached as before. That night we camped at the head of the hitherto unexplored inlet, and I had the satisfaction of knowing that one more stretch of previously unknown territory had been added to the world's map. Next day we started north along the west side of the inlet. We had been traveling for hours and were just looking for a suitable place to camp, being then at the foot of a steep bluff some fifty feet in height, when suddenly the dogs made a break for the shore and attempted to climb the bluff. Of course they could not do this on account of the sledges; but we knew what their wild action meant — more musk- oxen. In a moment Egingwah and I, with rifles in our hands, were climbing the bluff. Peering over the top MUSK-OXEN AT LAST 155 we saw a herd of five. It was nearly dark now, the arctic twilight being so dense that we could simply make out five dark spots. We waited for a moment to catch our breath, then I motioned to Ooblooyah to bring two of the dogs, leaving Koolatoonah with the others at the sledges. Notwithstanding the uncer- tain light, we made short work of this herd. Again I pitched the tent and prepared supper, while my brown friends paid their final respects to the musk-oxen on the bluff. It is necessary to evis- cerate these animals as soon as they are killed, otherwise the excessive heat of the great shaggy bodies will cause the meat to become tainted. When the three Eskimos came down to the tent the darkness was already upon us — a promise of the long black night to come. The next day we completed the circuit of the west- ern shore of the Inlet, then started on a bee line for Sail Harbor, making this a forced march. At Sail Harbor we found a note from Bartlett, showing that he had passed there the previous day on his way back from Cape Columbia to the ship. There we camped again; and in the morning, while the men were breaking camp and lashing up the sledges, I started with the very first rays of the morning light across the peninsula towards James Ross Bay. As I crested the divide, I saw — down on the shore of the Bay — a group of dark spots which were clearly recognized as a camp; and a little later I sang out to the party, which comprised the divisions of Bartlett, Goodsell, and Borup. By the time the sleepy-eyed, stiff figures of the 156 THENORTHPOLE three men — who, as I soon learned, had been asleep only an hour or so — emerged from the tents, my sledges and Eskimos were close at my heels. I can see now the bulging eyes of the men, and particularly of young Borup, when they saw the sledge loads of shaggy skins. On the top of the leading sledge was the magnificent snowy pelt of the polar bear, with the head forward; behind this was the deerskin with its wide-antlered head, and more musk-ox heads than they had had time to count. "Oh, gee!" exclaimed Borup, when his open- mouthed astonishment would permit of articulation. I had no time for visiting, as I wanted to reach the ship on that march; and after a few words left the men to finish their interrupted sleep. It was long after dark when we reached the Roosevelt. We had been absent seven sleeps, had traveled over two hundred miles, had accomplished the exploration of Clements Markham Inlet, had made a rough map of it, and incidentally had obtained magnificent speci- mens of the three great animals of the arctic regions, thus adding a few thousand pounds of fresh meat to our winter supply. So, with a feeling of entire satis- faction, I had a hot bath in my cabin bathroom on the Roosevelt, and then turned in to my bunk for a long and refreshing sleep. Throughout the month of October the work of transporting supplies and of hunting went on. The captain made two round trips from the ship to Cape Columbia; but he was working backward and forward all the time along the route. In the course of this work he obtained four musk-oxen. WEE-SHAK-UP-SI AND MUSK-OX CALF BEAB KILLED IN CLEMENTS MAKKIIAM INLET ^-5*5 . ; ^^~-^0*^^ r> j-— *~""'i"~*"">4L -^^f^^S i^T'CX^J^ ^ Af~? IS; -^ 3^>s ^2^ s! '\r-—^~^ L ^Mi^^^str- - . ■ ^ 2 MUSK-OXEN AT LAST 157 MacMillan recovered from his attack of grip, and on the 14th of October was sent with two sledges, two Eskimos, and twenty dogs to make a survey of Clements Markham Inlet and obtain musk-oxen and deer. He bagged five of the former. The last of the month the doctor also had an attack of grip, which kept him in bed for a week or two. Many small parties were sent out on short hunting trips and there was hardly a day during the fall when the men were all on the ship at one time. While, from the time of our arrival at Cape Sheri- dan early in September to the date of our departure from land for the Pole on March 1, every member of the expedition was almost constantly engaged in work that had for its object the completing of preparations for the final sledge journey in the spring, no small part of this work was educational in purpose and result. That is to say, it was intended to inure the "tender- feet" of the party to the hardships of long journeys over rough going and through low temperatures, snow and wind. It taught them how to take care of themselves under difficult conditions, how to defend themselves against the ever-present peril of frost-bite, how to get the greatest comfort and protection from their fur clothing, how to handle their valuable dogs and how to manage their Eskimo helpers so as to get the best results from their efforts. An entry in Dr. Goodsell's journal is so typical of the chief troubles of any arctic sledging journey that it is worth repeating here. "Have been utilizing the time," wrote Dr. Goodsell, "in trying to dry out stockings and boots. It is ex- 158 THENORTHPOLE tremely difficult to dry out stockings because of the cold and the necessity of economizing fuel. The gen- eral procedure is to discard footgear when it is nearly saturated with moisture. As long as the footgear is dry there is little danger of frosting the feet, if ordinary precautions are taken. With wet footgear one is in constant danger of freezing the feet. The oil-stove with the three-inch burner is barely sufficient to dry the gloves, of which two pairs are worn, an outer pair of bearskin, and an inner pair of deerskin." Another jour- nal entry deals with a different kind of peril: "Toxingwa and Weesockasee were overcome by the lack of oxygen and the fumes of alcohol while MacMillan was preparing tea. Weesockasee fell back as though asleep. Toxingwa was twisting around, as though to get his arm free from one sleeve of his jacket. He too, finally fell back. MacMillan surmised the cause and kicked the door to one side. In about fifteen or twenty minutes they came around all right. The Commander on another of his expeditions nearly had a similar experience when he saw his Eskimos acting strangely, and quickly kicked out the side of the igloo." Still another peril that is omnipresent in sledge journeys over a polar sea is that of falling through thin ice and getting thoroughly wet. Perhaps it is not necessary to enlarge upon the gravity of this dan- ger, since it was precisely such an accident that cost Professor Marvin his life. Even if the victim of such an accident should be able to drag himself out of the water, he would in all probability speedily freeze to death. Death by freezing comes speedily MUSK-OXEN AT LAST 159 to a water-soaked man when temperatures are ranging anywhere from 20 to 60 degrees below zero. "Just finished changing my boots for a dry pair," writes the doctor. "Crossing a lead covered with thin ice and fissured in the center, my left leg went in to the knee. Fortunately my right foot was for- ward on firm ice and I threw myself ahead, going down on my left knee on the edge of firm ice and drawing my leg out of the water. At another lead the ice gave way as I sprang from its surface. My right foot dipped into the water to the ankle. I do not understand why I did not go down bodily into the water. Had I gone in to my waist there would have been a serious result, for the sledges were some distance away and the temperature was 47° below zero. In the absence of an igloo and a change of clothes near at hand, a ducking in this temperature would certainly have a serious termination." Trying conditions these — yet the thing had its irresistible fascination, and now and then came reflective moments like the one on February 25, when the doctor, encamped on the way from the Roosevelt to Cape Columbia, wrote as follows: "When I was nearing Point Good, insensibly I paused time and again to view the scene. I could see Cape Hecla to the rear and the Parry Peninsula. In advance the twin peaks of Cape Columbia beckoned us on to the second point of departure in the Com- mander's northward march. To the north as we pro- gressed, beyond the comparatively smooth glacial fringe loomed the floes and pinnacles of rough ice which will try us all to the utmost for weeks to come. 160 THENORTHPOLE To the south the circumference of the horizon was bounded by the sharp, jagged, serrated mountain ranges, mostly parallel to the coast. Every day we have a glorious dawn lasting for hours. A golden gleam is radiated from parallel ranges of serrated mountains. Individual peaks reflect the light of the sun, which will illuminate them with its direct rays in a few days. There is a cornea of golden glow, crim- son and yellow, with strata of darker clouds floating parallel to the coast ranges — Turner effects for hours each day and for days in succession, the effect increas- ing from day to day. I am writing under difficulties, Innighito (an Eskimo) holding the candle. My hands are so cold that I can scarcely guide my pencil, as I recline on the bed platform of the igloo." But all this anticipates. On the 12th of October the sun had bidden us good-by for the year, and the rapidly darkening twilight increased the difficulties of the field work. Our photographs grew daily less satisfactory. We had not been able to take snap- shots since about the middle of September; for, when the sun is near the horizon, though the light is appar- ently as brilliant as in summer, it seems to have no actinic power. Our first time-exposures were five seconds; our last, on the 28th of October, were ninety minutes. The temperature also was gradually getting lower, and on the 29th of October it was 26° below zero. The fall work ended with the return of Bartlett and his party from Cape Columbia, on November 5th, the other men having all returned before. By that time the light had disappeared, and it would be neces- MUSK-OXEN AT LAST 161 sary to wait for the recurring moons of the long winter night before we could do any more work. We had gone up there in the arctic noon, had worked and hunted through the arctic twilight, and now the night was upon us — the long arctic night which seems like the valley of the shadow of death. With nearly all the supplies for the spring sledge journey already at Cape Columbia, with a good store of fresh meat for the winter, and our party all in good health, we entered the Great Dark with fairly contented hearts. Our ship was apparently safe; we were well housed and well fed; and if sometimes the terrible melancholy of the dark clutched for a moment at the hearts of the men, they bravely kept the secret from each other and from me. CHAPTER XVIII THE LONG NIGHT IT may well be doubted if it is possible for a person who has never experienced four months of con- stant darkness to imagine what it is. Every school boy learns that at the two ends of the earth the year is composed of one day and one night of equal length, and the intervening periods of twilight; but the mere recital of that fact makes no real impression on his consciousness. Only he who has risen and gone to bed by lamplight, and risen and gone to bed again by lamplight, day after day, week after week, month after month, can know how beautiful is the sunlight. During the long arctic night we count the days till the light shall return to us, sometimes, toward the end of the dark period, checking off the days on the calendar — thirty-one days, thirty days, twenty-nine days, and so on, till we shall see the sun again. He who would understand the old sun worshipers should spend a winter in the Arctic. Imagine us in our winter home on the Roosevelt, four hundred and fifty miles from the North Pole: the ship held tight in her icy berth, a hundred and fifty yards from the shore, the ship and the surrounding world covered with snow, the wind creaking in the rigging, whistling and shrieking around the corners of the deck houses, the temperature ranging from zero 162 THELONGNIGHT 163 to sixty below and the ice-pack in the channel outside groaning and complaining with the movement of the tides. During the moonlit period of each month, some eight or ten days, when the moon seems to circle round and round the heavens, the younger members of the expedi- tion were nearly always away on hunting trips; but during the longer periods of utter blackness most of us were on the ship together, as the winter hunting is done only by moonlight. It must be understood that the arctic moon has its regular phases, its only peculiarity being the course it appears to travel in the sky. When the weather is clear there is starlight, even in the dark period; but it is a peculiar, cold, and spectral starlight, which, to borrow the words of Milton, seems but to make the "darkness visible." When the stars are hidden, which may be much of the time, the darkness is so thick that it seems as if it could almost be grasped with the hand, and in a driving wind and snowstorm, if a man ventures to put his head outside the cabin door, he seems to be hurled back by invisible hands of demoniacal strength. During the early part of the winter the Eskimos lived in the forward deck house of the ship. There was always a fire in the galley stove, a fire in the Eskimo quarters, and one in the crew's quarters; but though I had a small cylindrical coal stove in my cabin, it was not lighted throughout the winter. Leaving the for- ward door of my cabin open into the galley a part of the time, kept my cabin comfortably warm. Bart- lett occasionally had a fire in his cabin, and the other 164 THENORTHPOLE members of the expedition sometimes lighted their oil- stoves. On the first of November we adopted the winter schedule of two meals a day, breakfast at nine, dinner at four. This is the weekly bill of fare which Percy, the steward, and I made out and which was followed throughout the winter Monday. Breakfast: Cereal. Beans and brown bread. Butter. Coffee. Dinner: Liver and bacon. Macaroni and cheese. Bread and butter. Tea. Tuesday. Breakfast: Oatmeal. Ham and eggs. Bread and butter. Coffee. Dinner: Corned beef and creamed peas. Duff. Tea. Wednesday. Breakfast: Choice of two kinds of cereal. Fish, forward (that is, for the sailors) ; sausage, aft (for the members of the expedition). Bread and butter. Coffee. Dinner: Steak and tomatoes. Bread and butter. Tea. Thursday. Breakfast: Cereal. Ham and eggs. Bread and butter. Coffee. Dinner: Corned beef and peas. Duff. Tea. Friday. Breakfast: Choice of cereal. Fish. Ham- burger on starboard (our own) table. Bread and but- ter. Coffee. Dinner: Pea soup. Fish. Cranberry pie. Bread and butter. Tea. Saturday. Breakfast: Cereal. Meat stew. Bread and butter. Coffee. Dinner: Steak and tomatoes. Bread and butter. Tea. Sunday. Breakfast: Cereal. "Brooze" (Newfound- land hard biscuit, softened and boiled with salt cod- fish). Bread and butter. Coffee. Dinner: Salmon trout. Fruit. Chocolate. THELONGNIGHT 165 Our table conversation was mainly with regard to our work. We would discuss the details of the last sledge trip, or talk over the plans for the next one. There was always something going on, and the minds of the men were so occupied that they did not have time to yield themselves to the traditional, maddening winter melancholy of the Arctic. Moreover, men of sanguine temperament had been selected, and much material in the rough had been carried along in order to keep everybody busy working it into shape for use. On Sunday mornings I breakfasted in my cabin, thus leaving the men to themselves. On these occasions conversation was less technical and ranged from books to table manners, and sometimes Bartlett seized the opportunity to give his companions half-serious, half- humorous advice on the matter of table conduct, telling them that the time would come when they must return to civilization, and that they must not allow themselves to get into careless habits. Thus the academic and the practical elements of the party met on even ground. I have never adopted rigorous rules for the members of my expeditions, because it is not necessary. There were regular hours for meals in the mess rooms. It was understood that lights should be out at midnight, but if any man wanted a light later, he could have it. These were our rules. The Eskimos were allowed to eat when they pleased. They might sit up late at night, if they chose, but their work of making sledges and fur clothing had to pro- ceed just the same the next day. There was only one rigid rule for them: that no loud noises, such as 166 THENORTHPOLE chopping dog meat or shouting, were to be made from ten o'clock at night until eight in the morning. While living on the Roosevelt, in winter quarters, we abandoned much of the routine of ship life afloat. The only regular bells were those at ten and twelve at night, the first a signal for all loud noises to cease, the latter a signal for lights to be turned out. The only watches were those of the regular day and night watchmen. With the exception of a few cases of grip, the health of the party was good during the whole period of our life at winter quarters. Grip in the Arctic, coincident with epidemics in Europe and America, is rather an interesting phenomenon. My first experience with it was in 1892, following one of the peculiar Greenland storms, similar to those in the Alps — a storm which evidently swept over the entire width of Greenland from the southeast, raising the temperature from the minus thirties to plus forty-one in twenty -four hours. Follow- ing that atmospheric disturbance every member of my party, and even some of the Eskimos, had a pronounced attack of grip. It was our opinion that the germs were brought to us by this storm, which was more than a local disturbance. Aside from rheumatism and bronchial troubles, the Eskimos are fairly healthy; but the adults are subject to a peculiar nervous affection which they call piblokto — a form of hysteria. I have never known a child to have piblokto; but some one among the adult Eskimos would have an attack every day or two, and one day there were five cases. The immediate cause of this affection is hard to trace, though sometimes it seems to be the result of a brooding over absent or dead relatives, THE LONG NIGHT 167 or a fear of the future. The manifestations of this dis- order are somewhat startling. The patient, usually a woman, begins to scream and tear off and destroy her clothing. If on the ship, she will walk up and down the deck, screaming and gesticu- lating, and generally in a state of nudity, though the thermometer may be in the minus forties. As the intensity of the attack increases, she will sometimes leap over the rail upon the ice, running perhaps half a mile. The attack may last a few minutes, an hour, or even more, and some sufferers become so wild that they would continue running about on the ice perfectly naked until they froze to death, if they were not forcibly brought back. When an Eskimo is attacked with piblokto indoors, nobody pays much attention, unless the sufferer should reach for a knife or attempt to injure some one. The attack usually ends in a fit of weeping, and when the patient quiets down, the eyes are bloodshot, the pulse high, and the whole body trembles for an hour or so afterward. The well-known madness among the Eskimo dogs is also called piblokto. Though it does not seem to be infectious, its manifestations are similar to those of hydrophobia. Dogs suffering from piblokto are usually shot, but they are often eaten by the Eskimos. The first winter moon came early in November, and on the 7th MacMillan started for Cape Columbia for a month of tidal observations, taking with him Jack Barnes, a sailor, Egingwah, and Inighito and their wives. Poodloonah, Ooblooah and Seegloo went as MacMillan's supporting party, to carry supplies, and 168 THE NORTH POLE Wesharkoopsee and Keshungwah started for Cape Richardson to bring back the musk-ox skins which had been left there during the fall hunting trips. The tidal observations by MacMillan at Cape Columbia were made in connection with the tidal observations which were constantly going on at Cape Sheridan during the fall and winter, and with those taken later at Cape Bryant on the other side of Robeson Channel. These tidal observations of the expedition of 1908-09 were the farthest north of all continuous series ever recorded anywhere, though similar obser- vations had been taken by the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition at Fort Conger, about sixty miles southwest. Marvin and Borup, during the November moon, continued the tidal observations at Cape Sheridan. The tidal igloo, which was built on the ice just inside the tide crack, about one hundred and eighty yards from the ship, was an ordinary Eskimo snow igloo and was used as a protection to the men in taking the obser- vations at the tide staff. This staff, about twelve feet long, was driven into the bottom, and its length was marked off in feet and inches. As the tide rose and fell, the ice and the igloo moved with the water, but the staff remained stationary, and by the position of the ice upon the staff we measured the tides, varying with the day, the moon and the season. The tides along the north coast of Grant Land are remarkable for the slightness of the rise and fall, which varies from an average of 1.8 feet at Cape Sheridan to .8 at Cape Columbia. As is well known to navigators, the tides at Sandy Hook, New York, sometimes rise twelve feet, while the tides in the Bay of Fundy are THELONGNIGHT 1C9 often over fifty feet; in Hudson Strait they are about forty, and there are places on the coast of China where the extreme rise is even greater. The two Eskimo women were sent to Cape Columbia with MacMillan's party because the Eskimo men like to have their families with them when they go on long trips. The women are useful in drying and mending the fur garments which are constantly going to pieces in the rough usage of the sledge trips. Some of them can drive a dog team as well as the men, and many of them are good shots. I have known them to shoot musk-oxen and even bears. They do not attempt the walrus, yet they can paddle a kayak as well as the men — to the limit of their strength. The accomplishments of the Eskimo women are of the useful rather than the ornamental kind. The hand- ling of the native lamp, for instance, requires great skill. If the lamp is well trimmed, it is as clear and smoke- less as our own lamps; if it is neglected, it smokes and smells vilely. As the Eskimos are not highly romantic, a woman's skill in dressing skins and in making clothes largely determines the quality of husband she is likely to get. The Eskimo men have not a very critical eye for feminine beauty, but they are strong in appreciation of domestic accomplishments. Even so early as November we began to be worried about the dogs. Many of them had died; they were nearly all in poor condition, and the food was none too abundant. It is always necessary to take up twice as many dogs as will be needed, in order to provide for probable accidents. On the 8th of November there were only one hundred and ninety-three out of the 170 THENORTH POLE two hundred and forty -six with which we had left Etah in August. The whale meat brought for them seemed to be lacking in nutrition. Four more that were in the worst condition were killed, to save the dog food, and on the 10th we had to kill five more. Then we tried the experiment of feeding them on pork, with the result that seven more died. I began to wonder whether we should have enough dogs left for the spring journey toward the Pole. It is absolutely impossible to figure on the Eskimo dog's uncertain tenure of life. The creatures will endure the severest hardships; they will travel and draw heavy loads on practically nothing to eat; they will live for days exposed to the wildest arctic blizzard; and then, sometimes in good weather, after an ordinary meal of apparently the best food, they will lie down and die. On the 25th of November we again overhauled and counted the dogs. There were now only one hundred and sixty left, and ten of these were in bad condition. But I discovered that day, on having the frozen walrus meat ripped up on the forecastle, that we had a greater supply than we had believed, and the discovery drove away the nightmare which had been haunting us. From now on the dogs could be fed a little more generous allowance of the best kind of food. For, after we had tried practically everything, including our bacon, it was found that walrus meat agreed with them better than anything else. The importance of this matter must not be lost sight of for an instant. Dogs, and plenty of them, were vitally necessary to the success of the expedition. Had THE LONG NIGHT 171 an epidemic deprived us of these animals, we might just as well have remained comfortably at home in the United States. All the money, brains and labor would have been utterly thrown away, so far as concerned the quest of the North Pole. CHAPTER XIX the roosevelt's narrow escape IT is perfectly true that the building business is not extensive in the arctic regions, but it is also a fact that if you expect to travel extensively there you must know how to build your own dwellings. If you neglect to instruct yourself in this direction the chances are that some time or other you will regret it. Toward the end of the autumn field work, the use of the canvas tents had been discontinued, and snow igloos had been constructed along the line of march. These were permanent, and were used by the various parties, one after the other. The new members of the expedi- tion were instructed in the art of igloo building by Mar- vin, Henson, and the Eskimos. No man should go into the field in the North in winter unless he knows how to build a shelter for himself against the cold and the storm. The size of the igloo depends usually upon the num- ber of men in the party. If built for three men, it will be about five by eight feet on the inside; if for five men, it will be about eight by ten, in order to give greater width to the sleeping platform. Four good men can build one of these snow houses in an hour. Each takes a saw knife from the up-stand- ers of the sledge and sets to work cutting snow blocks. The saw knives are about eighteen inches long and are 172 THE ROOSEVELT'S ESCAPE 173 strong and stiff, with a cutting edge on one side and saw- teeth on the other. The blocks of snow are of different sizes, those for the bottom row being larger and heavier than those for the upper rows, and all are curved on the inner side, so that when set together they will form a circle. The thickness of the walls depends upon the hardness of the snow. If it is closely packed, the walls may be only a few inches thick; if the snow is soft, the blocks are thicker, that they may hold their shape. The blocks for the bottom layer are sometimes two or three feet long and two feet high ; but sometimes they are much smaller, as there is no ironclad rule about it. When sufficient blocks have been cut to make an igloo, an Eskimo takes his position on the spot (usually a sloping bank of snow) which is to be the center of the structure. Then the others bring the snow blocks and place them end to end, on edge, to form an egg- shaped ring about the man in the center, who deftly joints and fits them with his snow knife. The second row is placed on top of the first, but sloping slightly inward; and the following rows are carried up in a gradually ascending spiral, each successive layer lean- ing inward a little more, and each block held in place by the blocks on either side, until finally an aperture is left in the top to be filled with one block. This block is then properly shaped by the man inside the igloo; he pushes it up endwise through the aperture, turns it over by reaching through the top, lowers it into place, and chips off with his knife until it fits the hole like the keystone of an arch, firmly keying the structure, whose general proportions are not unlike those of a beehive. 174 THENORTHPOLE A hole just large enough for a man to crawl through is cut close to the bottom on one side, and any super- fluous snow inside the igloo is thrown out through this hole. In the rear or larger end, the sloping floor is leveled off to form a bed platform, and in front of this the floor is dug down a foot or more for a standing space and a place for the cookers. Then the sleeping gear and cooking outfit are passed into the igloo, and, after the dogs have been fed and tethered for the night, the members of the party enter, the opening at the bottom is closed by a large block of snow, the edges of which have been shaped and chipped by a saw knife to make a tight joint, and everything is ready for the night. After the cookers are lighted, the igloo is soon com- paratively warm, and in the arctic regions, when men are tired out from a long march, they generally fall asleep easily. Insomnia is not one of the arctic annoyances. We never carry alarm clocks in the field to arouse us in the morning. The first man who has had his sleep out looks at his watch, and if it is time to be on the march again, he wakes the others. After breakfast we break camp and are out again. I did not join the field parties during the winter moons this time, but remained on the ship, going over and perfecting the plans for the spring campaign — the sledge journey toward the Pole — and giving consid- erable study to the new type of Peary sledge, to the improvement of details of clothing, and to experiment- ing with the new alcohol stove which I had designed for the spring work — determining the most effective THE ROOSEVELT'S ESCAPE 175 charge of alcohol, the most effective size of broken ice for melting, and so on. The question of weights is a most important factor in all sledge equipment, and it was necessary constantly to study to obtain the maxi- mum effectiveness with the minimum weight and bulk. For relaxation, I devoted many hours to a new form of taxidermy. About the middle of November I had a large snow igloo built on the top of the hatch on the main deck of the Roosevelt, which we called "the studio," and Borup and I began to experiment with flashlight pictures of the Eskimos. They had become accustomed to seeing counterfeit presentments of themselves on paper, and were very patient models. We also got some good moonlight pictures — time exposures varying from ten minutes to two or three hours. On this last expedition I did not permit myself to dream about the future, to hope, or to fear. On the 1905-06 expedition I had done too much dreaming; this time I knew better. Too often in the past had I found myself face to face with impassable barriers. When- ever I caught myself building air castles, I would either attack some work requiring intense application of the mind, or would go to sleep — it was hard sometimes to fight back the dreams, especially in my solitary walks on the ice-foot under the arctic moon. On the evening of November 11, there was a brilliant paraselene, two distinct halos and eight false moons being visible in the southern sky. This phenomenon is not unusual in the Arctic, and is caused by the frost crystals in the air. On this particular occasion the inner halo had a false moon at its zenith, another at 176 THE NORTH POLE its nadir, and one each at the right and left. Outside was another halo, with four other moons. Sometimes during the summer we see the parhelion, a similar phenomenon of the sun. I have seen the appearance of the false suns — or sun-dogs as the sailors call them — so near that the lowest one would seem to fall between me and a snow-bank twenty feet away, so near that by moving my head backward and forward I could shut it out or bring it into view. This was the nearest I ever came to finding the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow. On the night of November 12, the ice of the channel pack, which for more than two months had seemed unmindful of our intrusive presence, arose in wrath and tried to hurl us upon the equally inhospitable shore. All that evening the wind had been gradually increasing in violence, and about half-past eleven the ship began to complain, creaking, groaning and mutter- ing to herself. I lay in my bunk and listened to the wind in the humming rigging, while the moonlight, shining through the porthole, filled the cabin with dim shadows. Toward midnight, mingled with the noises of the ship, another and more ominous sound became audible — the grinding of the ice in the channel outside. I threw on my clothes and went on deck. The tide was running flood, and the ice was moving resistlessly past the point of the cape. The nearer ice, between us and the outer pack, was humming and groaning with the steadily increasing pressure. By the light of the moon we could see the pack as it began to break and pile up just beyond the edge of the ice-foot outside us. A few minutes later the whole mass broke with a rabid THE ROOSEVELT'S ESCAPE 177 roar into a tumbling chaos of ice blocks, some upheaving, some going under, and a big rafter, thirty feet high, formed at the edge of the ice-foot within twenty feet of the ship. The invading mass grew larger and larger and steadily advanced toward us. The grounded piece off our starboard beam was forced in and driven against the big ice block under our starboard quarter. The ship shook a little, but the ice block did not move. With every pulse of the tide the pressure and the motion continued, and in less than an hour from the time I had come on deck, a great floe berg was jammed against the side of the Roosevelt from amidships to the stern. It looked for a minute as if the ship were going to be pushed bodily aground. All hands were called, and every fire on board was extinguished. I had no fear of the ship being crushed by the ice, but she might be thrown on her side, when the coals, spilled from a stove, might start that horror of an arctic winter night, the "ship on fire." The Eskimos were thoroughly frightened and set up their weird howling. Several families began to gather their belongings, and in a few minutes women and children were going over the port rail onto the ice, and making for the box houses on the shore. The list of the Roosevelt toward the port or shore side grew steadily greater with the increasing pressure from outside. With the turn of the tide about half -past one in the morning, the motion ceased, but the Roose- velt never regained an even keel until the following spring. The temperature that night was 25° below zero, but it did not seem so very cold. Marvin's tidal igloo was split in two, but he con- 178 THE NORTH POLE tinued his observations, which were of peculiar interest that night; and as soon as the ice had quieted down Eskimos were sent out to repair the igloo. Strange to say, none of the Eskimos was attacked with piblokto because of their fright, and I learned that one of the women, Ahtetah, had remained quietly sewing in the Eskimo quarters during the whole disturbance. After this experience, however, some of the Eskimo families took up their winter residence in the box houses and in snow igloos ashore. The winter winds of the Far North are almost unim- aginable by any one who has never experienced them. Our winter at Cape Sheridan this last time was less severe than the winter of 1905-06, but we had several storms that reminded us of old times. The north and northwest winds sweeping down along the coast are the coldest; but for absolutely insane fury the winds from the south and the southwest, falling off the high- land of the coast with almost the impact of a wall of water, are unsurpassed anywhere else in the arctic regions. Sometimes these storms come on gradually, the wind from the northwest steadily increasing in force and swinging through the west to the southwest, gathering fury with every hour, until the snow is picked up bodily from the land and the ice-foot and carried in blinding, horizontal sheets across the ship. On deck it is impos- sible to stand or move, except in the shelter of the rail, and so blinding is the cataract of snow that the lamps, powerful as are their reflectors, are absolutely indis- tinguishable ten feet away. When a party in the field is overtaken by a storm, THE ROOSEVELT'S ESCAPE 179 they have to stay in the snow igloo until the fury is over. If there is no igloo near them, they build one just as quickly as they can when they see the storm approaching, or, if there is not time for that, they have to make a dugout in a snow bank. Thursday, the 26th of November, was proclaimed to be Thanksgiving Day in Grant Land. For dinner we had soup, macaroni and cheese, and mince pie made of musk-ox meat. During the December moon Captain Bartlett, with two Eskimos, two sledges, and twelve dogs, went out to scour the region between the ship and Lake Hazen for game. Henson, with similar equip- ment, went to Clements Markham Inlet. Borup, with seven Eskimos, seven sledges, and forty-two dogs, set out for Cape Colan and Cape Columbia. Dr. Goodsell started at the same time with three Eskimos, two sledges, and twelve dogs, to hunt in the region from Black Cliffs Bay to James Ross Bay. The parties were to use the regular arctic ration of tea, pemmican, and biscuit, unless they found game, in which case they were to use fresh meat for both men and dogs. In addition to the hunting, supplies for the spring sledge work were to be moved from one cache to another along the coast. To give variety to the work, the men who remained with the ship during one moon went into the field the next. The ship's men, engineers and sailors, seldom went on hunting trips but remained with the ship, attending to their regular duties and sometimes help- ing with the work of equipment. I had in my cabin a good arctic library — absolutely complete as regards the work of later years. This 180 THENORTHPOLE included Abruzzi's "On the Polar Star in the Arctic Sea," Nansen's "Farthest North," Nares' "Voyage to the Polar Sea," Markham's two volumes on arctic explorations, the narratives of Greely, Hall, Hayes, Kane, Inglefield — in fact, all the stories of the naviga- tors of the Smith Sound region, as well as those who have attempted the Pole from other directions, such as the Austrian expedition under Payer and Weyprecht, Koldewey's East Greenland expedition, and so forth. Then, in antarctic literature I had Captain Scott's two magnificent volumes, "The Voyage of the Dis- covery" Borchgrevink's "The Southern Cross Expedi- tion to the Antarctic," Nordenskjold's "Antarctica," the "Antarctica" of Balch, and Carl Fricker's "The Antarctic Regions," as well as Hugh Robert Mills' "Siege of the South Pole." The members of the expedition used to borrow these books, one at a time, and I think that before the winter was over they all knew pretty well what had been done by other men in this field. Every week or ten days throughout the winter we had to remove from our cabins the ice caused by the condensation of the moist air where it came in contact with the cold outer walls. Behind every article of fur- niture near the outer wall the ice would form, and we used to chop it out from under our bunks by the pailful. The books were always placed far forward on the shelves, because if a book were pushed back it would freeze solid to the wall. Then, if a warmer day came, or a fire was built in the cabin, the ice would melt, the water would run down and the leaves of the book would mold. THE ROOSEVELT'S ESCAPE 181 The sailors amused themselves after the manner of sailors everywhere, playing dominoes, cards and check- ers, boxing and telling stories. They used to play at feats of strength, such as finger-pulling, with the Eskimos. One of the men had an accordion, another a banjo, and as I sat working in my cabin I used often to hear them singing "Annie Rooney," "McGinty," "The Spanish Cavalier," and sometimes "Home, Sweet Home." Nobody seemed to be bored. Percy, who had special charge of the phonograph, often treated the men to a concert, and all through the winter I heard nobody complain of monotony or homesickness. CHAPTER XX CHRISTMAS ON THE ROOSEVELT TE four December field parties returned to the ship one after the other. Captain Bartlett was the only one who had found any game, and he got only five hares. During this trip the captain had an experience which might have been decidedly uncomfortable for him, had it turned out a bit less fortunately. He was up in the Lake Hazen region with his Eskimos, and he had left them at the igloo while he looked around for game. He had just found some deer tracks when the moon went behind a bank of clouds and the night became suddenly black. He waited an hour or two for the moon to come out that he might see where he was, and meanwhile the two Eskimos, thinking he was lost, broke camp and set out for the ship. As soon as there was light enough, he started off to the south of the igloo, and after a time overtook his companions. Had he gone even a little way to the north he would not have met them, and would have had to walk back alone to the ship, without supplies, a distance of seventy or eighty miles, with a storm brewing. This party had bad weather nearly all the way home. The temperature was comparatively mild, only ten or fifteen degrees below zero, and the sky was overcast. The captain made the last march a long one, notwith- 182 CHRISTMAS 183 standing the darkness. Of course he could not always keep the trail. Sometimes he would be walking along over snow as level as a floor, then suddenly the level would drop ten or fifteen feet, and, walking right on in the dark, he would land on the back of his head with such force that he saw stars which do not appear in any scientific celestial map. At one point in the journey they struck going so rough that it was impossible to push ahead and drive the dogs without light. They had no lantern, but Bart- lett took a sugar tin, cut holes in the sides, and put a candle in it. With this makeshift beacon he was able to keep somewhere near the trail. But there was considerable wind, and he declared that he used enough matches in relighting the candle on that march to keep an Eskimo family cheerful throughout a whole winter. The failure of these parties to obtain game was a serious matter. In order to save food I had still further to reduce the number of dogs. We overhauled them, and fourteen of the poorest — they would not have survived the winter — were killed and used as food for the others. I am often asked how the wild herbivorous animals, like the musk-ox and the reindeer, survive the winter in that snow-covered land. By a strange paradox, the wild winds that rage in that country help them in their struggle for existence, for the wind sweeps the dried grasses and scattered creeping willows bare of snow over great stretches of land, and there the animals can graze. December 22 marked the midnight of the "Great Night," the sun from that day starting on the return 184 THENORTHPOLE journey north. In the afternoon all the Eskimos were assembled on deck, and I went to them with my watch in my hand, telling them that the sun was now coming back. Marvin rang the ship's bell, Matt Henson fired three shots, and Borup set off some flashlight powder. Then the men, women, and children formed in line and marched into the after deck house by the port gangway, passing the galley, where each one received, in addition to the day's rations, a quart of coffee, with sugar and milk, ship's biscuit, and musk-ox meat; the women were also given candy and the men tobacco. After the celebration, Pingahshoo, a boy of twelve or thirteen, who helped Percy in the galley, started con- fidently south over the hills to meet the sun. After a few hours he returned to the ship, quite crestfallen, and Percy had to explain to him that while the sun was really on its way back, it would not get to us for nearly three months more. The next day after the winter solstice, our supply of water from the Cape Sheridan River having failed, Eskimos were sent out to reconnoiter the ponds of the neighborhood. The English expedition on the Alert had melted ice during their entire winter, and on the expedition of 1905-06 we had been obliged to melt ice for a month or two; but this year the Eskimos sounded the ponds, and about fifteen feet of water was found in one a mile inland from the Roosevelt. Over the hole in the ice they built a snow igloo with a light wooden trap-door, so as to keep the water in the hole from freezing too quickly. The water was brought to the ships in barrels on sledges drawn by the Eskimo dogs. CHRISTMAS 185 As Christmas fell in the dark of the moon, all the members of the expedition were on the ship, and we celebrated with a special dinner, field sports, raffles, prizes, and so on. It was not very cold that day, only minus 23°. In the morning we greeted each other with the "Merry Christmas" of civilization. At breakfast we all had letters from home and Christmas presents, which had been kept to be opened on that morning. MacMillan was master of ceremonies and arranged the program of sports. At two o'clock there were races on the ice-foot. A seventy-five-yard course was laid out, and the ship's lanterns, about fifty of them, were arranged in two parallel rows, twenty feet apart. These lanterns are similar to a railway brakeman's lantern, only larger. It was a strange sight — that illuminated race-course within seven and a half degrees of the earth's end. The first race was for Eskimo children, the second for Eskimo men, the third for Eskimo matrons with babies in their hoods, the fourth for unencumbered women. There were four entries for the matrons' race, and no one could have guessed from watching them that it was a running race. They came along four abreast, dressed in furs, their eyes rolling, puffing like four excited walruses, the babies in their hoods gazing with wide and half-bewildered eyes at the glittering lanterns. There was no question of cruelty to children, as the mothers were not moving fast enough to spill their babies. Then there were races for the ship's men and the members of the expedition, and a tug of war between the men aft and forward. 186 THENORTHPOLE Nature herself participated in our Christmas cele- brations by providing an aurora of considerable bril- liancy. While the races on the ice-foot were in progress, the northern sky was filled with streamers and lances of pale white light. These phenomena of the northern sky are not, contrary to the common belief, especially frequent in these most northerly latitudes. It is always a pity to destroy a pleasant popular illusion; but I have seen auroras of a greater beauty in Maine than I have ever seen beyond the Arctic Circle. Between the races and the dinner hour, which was at four o'clock, I gave a concert on the seolian in my cabin, choosing the merriest music in the rack. Then we separated to "dress for dinner." This ceremony con- sisted in putting on clean flannel shirts and neckties. The doctor was even so ambitious as to don a linen collar. Percy, the steward, wore a chef's cap and a large white apron in honor of the occasion, and he laid the table with a fine linen cloth and our best silver. The wall of the mess room was decorated with the American flag. We had musk-ox meat, an English plum pudding, sponge cake covered with chocolate, and at each plate was a package containing nuts, cakes, and candies, with a card attached: "A Merry Christmas, from Mrs. Peary." After dinner came the dice-throwing contests, and the wrestling and pulling contests in the forecastle. The celebration ended with a graphophone concert, given by Percy. But perhaps the most interesting part of our day was the distribution of prizes to the winners in the various CHRISTMAS 187 contests. In order to afford a study in Eskimo psychol- ogy, there was in each case a choice between prizes. Tookoomah, for instance, who won in the women's race, had a choice among three prizes: a box of three cakes of scented soap; a sewing outfit, containing a paper of needles, two or three thimbles, and several spools of different-sized thread; and a round cake covered with sugar and candy. The young woman did not hesitate. She had one eye, perhaps, on the sewing outfit, but both hands and the other eye were directed toward the soap. She knew what it was meant for. The meaning of cleanliness had dawned upon her — a sudden ambition to be attractive. The last time that all the members of the expedition ate together was at the four o'clock dinner on December 29, for that evening Marvin, the captain, and their parties started for the Greenland coast; and when we met together at the ship after my return from the Pole there was one who was not with us — one who would never again be with us. Ross Marvin was, next to Captain Bartlett, the most valuable man in the party. Whenever the captain was not in the field, Marvin took command of the work, and on him devolved the sometimes onerous, sometimes amusing labor of breaking in the new members. During the latter part of the former expedition in the Roosevelt, Marvin had grasped more fully than any other man the underlying, fundamental principles of the work. He and I together had planned the details of the new method of advance and relay parties. This method, given a fixed surface over which to travel, could be mathematically demonstrated, and it has 188 THENORTHPOLE proved to be the most effective way to carry on an arctic sledge journey. The party that started for the Greenland coast, across the ice of Robeson Channel, on the evening of December 29, consisted of Marvin, the captain, nine Eskimos, and fifty-four dogs. They were all to go south along the coast to Cape Union, then cross the channel to Cape Brevoort, Marvin, with his men and supporting parties, going north to Cape Bryant for a month of tidal observations, the captain and his men going south along the ice of Newman Bay and on to the Polaris Promontory to hunt. The following day, Dr. Goodsell and Borup, each with his party of Eskimos and dogs, started by way of Cape Belknap, the doctor to hunt in Clements Markham Inlet, Borup to hunt in the region of the first glacier north of Lake Hazen. No such extensive field work had ever before been attempted by any arctic expedi- tion, the radius of territory covered being about ninety miles in all directions from our winter quarters. While distributing material for the spring sewing among the Eskimo women in the forward deck house and in the box houses and snow igloos on shore, I learned that some of the Eskimo men felt somewhat shaky about going north again on the ice of the polar sea. They had not forgotten the narrow escape we had had in recrossing the "big lead" on the return journey from the "farthest north" of 1906. Though I felt confident of my ability to handle them when the time came, still, I realized that we might have trouble with them yet. But I would not permit myself to worry about the outcome. CHRISTMAS 189 The first of the January hunting parties, Dr. Good- sell's, came in on the 11th. They had had no luck, though they had seen fresh tracks of musk-oxen. Borup came in the next morning with eighty-three hares, and an interesting story. They were right up against the glacier when they came across a whole colony of the little white arctic animals. He said there must have been nearly a hundred of them. The arctic hares are not wild ; they will come so near to the hunter that he can almost grasp them with his hand. They have not learned the fear of man, because in their wilds man is practically unknown. Borup and the Eskimos surrounded the hares, until finally they got so near to them that instead of using any more ammuni- tion they knocked the creatures over the heads with the butts of their rifles. One day, during this hunting trip, Borup and his Eskimos became confused and were unable to find their igloo for twenty -four hours. The saw-knives, essential in constructing a snow igloo, had been left behind, and none of the men had even an ordinary knife which might have been used as a substitute. There was a gale of wind, the moon was obscured, the air was full of whirling snow, and it was very cold. They spent most of the time walking to and fro to keep warm. At last, when they were exhausted, they turned the sledges on their sides, the Eskimos worked out with their feet snow blocks which reinforced the shelter, and they were able to snatch a little sleep. When the weather cleared, they found themselves half a mile from their igloo. The day following Borup's return, the captain came 190 THENORTHPOLE in with his men and Marvin's supporting party of four. We were just beginning to be worried about them, as the ice of Robeson Channel in the dark of winter is not the safest road for a sledge party. The captain reported that they had been only six hours in crossing the chan- nel; but, though he had reconnoitered the whole plain of the Polaris Promontory, he had seen no musk-oxen. By the end of January we could see a faint redness in the south at noon, and the twilight was increasing. The last moon of the winter was now circling in the sky, and I wrote in my diary: "Thank Heaven, no more moons!" No matter how many dark winters a man may have gone through in the Arctic, the longing for the sun does not grow less intense. In the February moon Bartlett went to Cape Hecla, Goodsell moved more supplies from Hecla to Cape Colan, and Borup went to Markham Inlet on another hunting trip. Before leaving, the doctor completed a record of the approximate mean temperatures for the season, which showed that every month except October had been colder than three years before. For Decem- ber the mean was eight degrees lower. Marvin was still at Cape Bryant, but the last of the February parties came in on the 9th, and from that time on we were all busy preparing for the great and last journey. On Sunday night, February 14, I had a brief talk with the Eskimo men, telling them what we proposed to do, what was expected of them, and what each man who went to the farthest point with me would get when he returned: boat, tent, Winchester repeater, shotgun, ammunition, box of tobacco, pipes, cartridges, numerous knives, hatchets, et cetera. CHRISTMAS 191 Their fears of the "big lead" took flight at the prospect of what to them was untold riches; and when it came to the point of making up my sledge parties, only one Eskimo, Panikpah, would admit any fears. They had seen me return so many times that they were ready to take their chances with me this one time more. Bartlett left the ship on Monday, February 15, with instructions to go straight through to Cape Columbia, then put in two or three days hunting for musk-oxen in the neighborhood. The three divisions following Bart- lett had instructions to go to Cape Columbia with their loads; then return to Cape Colan, where there was a cache, and take full loads from there to Cape Columbia. Goodsell's division started on Tuesday, on Wednesday it was stormy, and MacMillan and Henson got away on Thursday. They were all to meet me at Cape Columbia on the last day of February. Marvin and his party had come in from Cape Bryant about six o'clock on Wednesday night. They were all well. Borup's division left the ship on Friday, Marvin's division got away on Sunday, the 21st, and I was left alone on the ship for one day. That last day was one of perfect quiet and rest, free from interruption. The morning I devoted to going over carefully the details of the work already done, to see that no slenderest necessary thread had been overlooked, and to considering again, point by point, the details of the coming journey. When I had satisfied myself (as I had not been able to do during the bustle and constant interruptions of the last two weeks) that everything was in its place and 192 THE NORTH POLE every possible contingency provided for, I had a few hours in which to look the situation squarely in the face, and to think of those other times, when, as now, I was on the eve of departure into the void and unknown North. When at last I turned in for a few hours' sleep before the morning start, it was with the consciousness that so far as my knowledge and ability went, everything had been done, and that every member of the party, as well as myself, would put into his efforts all there was in him of will and sinew and vitality. This being settled, the outcome rested with the elements — the vagaries of the arctic pack, and the quality and amount of our own physical and mental stamina. This was my final chance to realize the one dream of my life. The morning start would be the drawing of the string to launch the last arrow in my quiver. CRANE CITY, CAPE COLUMBIA, AT THE TIME OF DEPARTURE March 1st. 1909 FACE OF THE LAND ICE, GLACIAL FRIXGE, OFF CAPE COLUMBIA ITXXACLE XEAK THE SHORE CHAPTER XXI ARCTIC ICE SLEDGING AS IT REALLY IS PERHAPS it will assist the reader to form a more vivid picture of the sort of work that now lay before the expedition and which the expedition eventually performed, if an effort is made to make him understand exactly what it means to travel nearly a thousand miles with dog sledges over the ice of the polar pack. In that belief, I shall at this point endeavor to describe as briefly as is consistent with clear- ness the conditions that confronted us and the means and methods by which those conditions were met. Between the winter quarters of the Roosevelt at Cape Sheridan, and Cape Columbia, the most northerly point on the north coast of Grant Land, which I had chosen as the point of departure for the ice journey, lay ninety miles in a northwesterly direction along the ice- foot and across the land, which we must traverse before plunging onto the trackless ice fields of the Arctic Ocean. From Cape Columbia we were to go straight north over the ice of the Polar Sea, — four hundred and thirteen geographical miles. Many persons whose memories go back to the smooth skating ponds of their childhood, picture the Arctic Ocean as a gigantic skating pond with a level floor over which the dogs drag us merrily — we sitting comfortably upon the sledges with 193 194 THENORTHPOLE hot bricks to keep our toes and fingers warm. Such ideas are distinctly different from the truth, as will appear. There is no land between Cape Columbia and the North Pole and no smooth and very little level ice. For a few miles only after leaving the land we had level going, as for those few miles we were on the "glacial fringe." This fringe, which fills all the bays and extends across the whole width of North Grant Land, is really an exaggerated ice-foot; in some places it is miles in width. While the outer edge in places is afloat and rises and falls with the movement of the tides, it never moves as a body, except where great fields of ice break off from it and float away upon the waters of the Arctic Ocean. Beyond the glacial fringe is the indescribable surface of the shore lead, or tidal crack — that zone of unceasing conflict between the heavy floating ice and the station- ary glacial fringe. This shore lead is constantly open- ing and shutting; opening when there are offshore winds, or spring ebb-tides, crushing shut when there are northerly winds or spring flood-tides. Here the ice is smashed into fragments of all sizes and piled up into great pressure ridges parallel with the shore. The ice is smashed into these pressure ridges by the sheer and unimaginable force with which the floes are driven against the edge of the glacial fringe, just as farther out the pressure ridges are caused by the force with which the great floes themselves are crushed and smashed together by the force of the wind and the tides. These pressure ridges may be anywhere from a few feet to a few rods in height; they may be anywhere from ARCTIC ICE SLEDGING 195 a few rods to a quarter of a mile in width; the individual masses of ice of which they are composed may vary, respectively, from the size of a billiard ball to the size of a small house. Going over these pressure ridges one must pick his trail as best he can, often hacking his way with pick- axes, encouraging the dogs by whip and voice to follow the leader, lifting the five-hundred-pound loaded sledges over hummocks and up acclivities whose difficulties sometimes seem likely to tear the muscles from one's shoulder-blades. Between the pressure ridges are the old floes, more or less level. These floes, contrary to wide-spread and erroneous ideas, are not formed by direct freezing of the water of the Arctic Ocean. They are made up of great sheets of ice broken off from the glacial fringe of Grant Land and Greenland, and regions to the westward, which have drifted out into the polar sea. These fields of ice are anywhere from less than twenty to more than one hundred feet in thickness, and they are of all shapes and sizes. As a result of the constant movement of the ice during the brief summer, when great fields are detached from the glaciers and are driven hither and thither under the impulse of the wind and the tides — impinging against one another, splitting in two from the violence of contact with other large fields, crushing up the thinner ice between them, having their edges shattered and piled up into pressure ridges — the surface of the polar sea during the winter may be one of almost unimaginable unevenness and roughness. At least nine-tenths of the surface of the polar sea between Cape Columbia and the Pole is made up of 196 THE NORTH POLE these floes. The other one-tenth, the ice between the floes, is formed by the direct freezing of the sea water each autumn and winter. This ice never exceeds eight or ten feet in thickness. The weather conditions of the fall determine to a great extent the character of the ice surface of the polar sea during the following winter. If there have been continuous shoreward winds at the time when the increasing cold was gradually cementing the ice masses together, then the heavier ice will have been forced toward the shore; and the edges of the ice-fields farther out, where they come in contact, will have piled up into a series of pressure ridges, one beyond the other, which any one traveling northward from the land must go over, as one would go over a series of hills. If, on the other hand, there has been little wind in the fall, when the surface of the polar sea was becoming cemented and frozen over, many of these great floes will have been separated from other floes of a like size and character, and there may be stretches of com- paratively smooth, young, or new, ice between them. If, after the winter has set in, there should still be violent winds, much of this thinner ice may be crushed up by the movement of the heavier floes; but if the winter remains calm, this smoother ice may continue until the general breaking up in the following summer. But the pressure ridges above described are not the worst feature of the arctic ice. Far more troublesome and dangerous are the "leads" (the whalers' term for lanes of open water), which are caused by the movement of the ice under the pressure of the wind and tides. These are the ever-present nightmare of the traveler ARCTIC ICE SLEDGING 197 over the frozen surface of the polar ocean — on the upward journey for fear that they may prevent further advance; on the return journey for fear they may cut him off from the land and life, leaving him to wander about and starve to death on the northern side. Their occurrence or non-occurrence is a thing impossible to prophesy or calculate. They open without warning immediately ahead of the traveler, following no appar- ent rule or law of action. They are the unknown quantity of the polar equation. Sometimes these leads are mere cracks running through old floes in nearly a straight line. Sometimes they are zigzag lanes of water just wide enough to be impossible to cross. Sometimes they are rivers of open water from half a mile to two miles in width, stretching east and west farther than the eye can see. There are various ways of crossing the leads. One can go to the right or the left, with the idea of finding some place where the opposite edges of the ice are near enough together so that our long sledges can be bridged across. Or, if there are indications that the lead is closing, the traveler can wait until the ice comes quite together. If it is very cold, one may wait until the ice has formed thick enough to bear the loaded sledges going at full speed. Or, one may search for a cake of ice, or hack out a cake with pickaxes, which can be used as a ferry-boat on which to transport the sledges and teams across. But all these means go for naught when the "big lead," which marks the edge of the continental shelf where it dips down into the Arctic Ocean, is in one of its tantrums, opening just wide enough to keep a 198 THE NORTH POLE continual zone of open water or impracticable young ice in the center, as occurred on our upward journey of 1906 and the never-to-be-forgotten return journey of that expedition, when this lead nearly cut us off forever from life itself. A lead might have opened right through our camp, or through one of the snow igloos, when we were sleep- ing on the surface of the polar sea. Only — it didn't. Should the ice open across the bed platform of an igloo, and precipitate its inhabitants into the icy water below, they would not readily drown, because of the buoyancy of the air inside their fur clothing. A man dropping into the water in this way might be able to scramble onto the ice and save himself; but with the thermometer at 50° below zero it would not be a pleasant contingency. This is the reason why I have never used a sleeping- bag when out on the polar ice. I prefer to have my legs and arms free, and to be ready for any emergency at a moment's notice. I never go to sleep when out on the sea ice without my mittens on, and if I pull my arms inside my sleeves I pull my mittens in too, so as to be ready for instant action. What chance would a man in a sleeping-bag have, should he suddenly wake to find himself in the water? The difficulties and hardships of a journey to the North Pole are too complex to be summed up in a paragraph. But, briefly stated, the worst of them are: the ragged and mountainous ice over which the traveler must journey with his heavily loaded sledges; the often terrific wind, having the impact of a wall of water, which he must march against at times; the open leads ARCTIC ICE SLEDGING 199 already described, which he must cross and recross, somehow; the intense cold, sometimes as low as 60° below zero, through which he must — by fur clothing and constant activity — keep his flesh from freezing; the difficulty of dragging out and back over the ragged and "lead" interrupted trail enough pemmican, biscuit, tea, condensed milk, and liquid fuel to keep sufficient strength in his body for traveling. It was so cold much of the time on this last journey that the brandy was frozen solid, the petroleum was white and viscid, and the dogs could hardly be seen for the steam of their breath. The minor discomfort of building every night our narrow and uncomfortable snow houses, and the cold bed plat- form of that igloo on which we must snatch such hours of rest as the exigencies of our desperate enterprise per- mitted us, seem hardly worth mentioning in comparison with the difficulties of the main proposition itself. At times one may be obliged to march all day long facing a blinding snowstorm with the bitter wind search- ing every opening in the clothing. Those among my readers who have ever been obliged to walk for even an hour against a blizzard, with the temperature ten or twenty degrees above zero, probably have keen memories of the experience. Probably they also remember how welcome was the warm fireside of home at the end of their journey. But let them imagine tramping through such a storm all day long, over jagged and uneven ice, with the temperature between fifteen and thirty degrees below zero, and no shelter to look forward to at the end of the day's march excepting a narrow and cold snow house which they would themselves be obliged to build in that very storm before they could eat or rest. 200 THE NORTH POLE I am often asked if we were hungry on that journey. I hardly know whether we were hungry or not. Morning and night we had pemmican, biscuit and tea, and the pioneer or leading party had tea and lunch in the middle of the day's march. Had we eaten more, our food supply would have fallen short. I myself dropped twenty -five pounds of flesh between my departure from the ship and my return to it. But fortitude and endurance alone are not enough in themselves to carry a man to the North Pole. Only with years of experience in traveling in those regions, only with the aid of a large party, also experienced in that character of work, only with the knowledge of arctic detail and the equipment necessary to prepare himself and his party for any and every emergency, is it possible for a man to reach that long sought goal and return. CHAPTER XXII ESSENTIALS THAT BROUGHT SUCCESS SOMETHING has already been said regarding the fact that our journey to the North Pole was no haphazard, hit or miss "dash." It was not really a "dash" at all. Perhaps it may properly be described as a "drive" — in the sense that when the sledge journey got under way we pressed forward with a speed at times almost breathless. But nothing was done impulsively. Everything was done in accordance with a scheme long contemplated and plotted out in advance with every possible care. The source of our success was a carefully planned system, mathematically demonstrated. Everything that could be controlled was controlled, and the indeter- minate factors of storms, open leads and accidents to men, dogs and sledges, were taken into consideration in the percentage of probabilities and provided for as far as possible. Sledges would break and dogs would fall by the way, of course; but we could generally make one sledge out of two broken ones, and the gradual depletion of the dogs was involved in my calculations. The so-called "Peary system" is too complex to be covered in a paragraph, and involves too many technical details to be outlined fully in any popular narrative. But the main points of it are about as follows: 201 202 THENORTHPOLE To drive a ship through the ice to the farthest pos- sible northern land base from which she can be driven back again the following year. To do enough hunting during the fall and winter to keep the party healthily supplied with fresh meat. To have dogs enough to allow for the loss of sixty per cent, of them by death or otherwise. To have the confidence of a large number of Eskimos, earned by square dealing and generous gifts in the past, so that they will follow the leader to any point he may specify. To have an intelligent and willing body of civilized assistants to lead the various divisions of Eskimos — men whose authority the Eskimos will accept when delegated by the leader. To transport beforehand to the point where the expedition leaves the land for the sledge journey, suf- ficient food, fuel, clothing, stoves (oil or alcohol) and other mechanical equipment to get the main party to the Pole and back and the various divisions to their farthest north and back. To have an ample supply of the best kind of sledges. To have a sufficient number of divisions, or relay parties, each under the leadership of a competent assistant, to send back at appropriate and carefully calculated stages along the upward journey. To have every item of equipment of the quality best suited to the purpose, thoroughly tested, and of the lightest possible weight. To know, by long experience, the best way to cross wide leads of open water. ESSENTIALS OF SUCCESS 203 To return by the same route followed on the upward march, using the beaten trail and the already con- structed igloos to save the time and strength that would have been expended in constructing new igloos and in trail-breaking. To know exactly to what extent each man and dog may be worked without injury. To know the physical and mental capabilities of every assistant and Eskimo. Last, but not least, to have the absolute confidence of every member of the party, white, black, or brown, so that every order of the leader will be implicitly obeyed. Bartlett's division was to pioneer the road, and keep one day ahead of the main party. It was my plan at this time to keep the pioneer party close to the main party, and thus prevent the possibility of its being cut off from the main party by a rapidly forming lead, with insufficient supplies either for a further advance or for regaining the main division. Bartlett's pioneer division comprised himself and three Eskimos, Pooadloonah, "Harrigan," and Ooqueah, with one sledge and team of dogs, carrying their own gear and five days' supplies for the division. Borup's division comprised himself and three Eski- mos, Keshungwah, Seegloo, and Karko, with four sledges and dog teams carrying nearly the standard loads. His division was to act as an advance supporting party, and was to accompany Bartlett for three marches and then return to Cape Columbia in one march with empty sledges. He was to deposit his loads and one sledge at the place where he left Bartlett, making a cache on the line of march ; then hurry back to Colum- 204 THE NORTH POLE bia, re-load, and overtake the main party, which would leave the land one day after himself and Bartlett. By this arrangement, if there were no delays, the main party would begin its third march at the same time when Borup started back; the evening of the third day would find the main party at Borup's cache, and Borup at Cape Columbia; the next morning, when the main party began its fourth march, Borup would be leaving Cape Columbia three marches behind, which difference, with a well-traveled trail to follow, he could probably eliminate in three marches. It chanced that this sending back of Borup for additional loads to overtake the main party, with the later complications which grew out of it, through the opening of leads between him and the main party, was a link in the chain of delays which might have caused serious trouble, as will be hereafter explained. In order that the reader may understand this journey over the ice of the polar sea, it is necessary that the theory and practise of both pioneer and sup- porting parties should be fully understood. Without this system, as has been amply demonstrated by the experience of previous expeditions, it would be a physi- cal impossibility for any man to reach the North Pole, and return. The use of relay parties in arctic work is, of course, not new, though the idea was carried further in the last expedition of the Peary Arctic Club than ever before; but the pioneer party is original with my expedi- tions and for that reason it is perhaps worth while to describe it in detail. The pioneer party was one unit division, made up of four of the most active and experienced men of the ESSENTIALS OF SUCCESS 205 expedition, with sledges lightly loaded with five or six days' provisions, drawn by the best dog teams of the entire pack. When we started from Cape Columbia, this pioneer party, headed by Bartlett, went out twenty- four hours in advance of the main party. Later on, when we reached the time of continuous daylight and sunlight through the twenty -four hours, the pioneer party was but twelve hours in advance of the main party. The duty of this pioneer party was to make a march in every twenty-four hours in spite of every obstacle — excepting, of course, some impassable lead. Whether there was a snowstorm or violent winds to be faced, or mountainous pressure ridges were to be climbed over, the march of the pioneer party must be made; for past experience had proved that whatever distance was covered by the advance party with its light sledges could be covered in less time by the main party even with heavily loaded sledges, because the main party, having the trail to follow, was not obliged to waste time in reconnoitering. In other words, the pioneer party, was the pace-maker of the expedition, and whatever distance it made was the measure of accomplishment for the main party. The leader of the pioneer party, in the first instance Bartlett, would start out ahead of his division, usually on snowshoes; then the light sledges of the party would follow him. Thus the leader of the pioneer division was pioneering ahead of his own party, and that whole division was pioneering ahead of the main party. It is necessary that the arduous work of trail-break- ing for the first two-thirds of the distance over the 206 THE NORTH POLE rougher ice nearer the land should be done by one division after another, in succession, in order to save the strength of the main party for their final drive. One great advantage which I had on this expedition was that, owing to the size of my party, whenever the men in this pioneer division became exhausted with their arduous labor and lack of sleep, I could withdraw them into the main party, and send out another division to take their place. Supporting parties are essential to success because, a single party, comprising either a small or a large number of men and dogs, could not possibly drag (in gradually lessening quantities) all the way to the Pole and back (some nine hundred odd miles) as much food and liquid fuel as the men and dogs of that party would consume during the journey. It will be readily under- stood that when a large party of men and dogs starts out over the trackless ice to the polar sea, where there is no possibility of obtaining a single ounce of food on the way, after several days' marching, the provisions of one or more sledges will have been consumed by the men and dogs. When this occurs, the drivers and dogs with those sledges should be sent back to the land at once. They are superfluous mouths which can- not be fed from the precious supply of provisions which are being dragged forward on the sledges. Still further on, the food on one or two more sledges will have been consumed. These sledges also, with their dogs and drivers, must be sent back, in order to ensure the furthest possible advance by the main party. Later on, still other divisions must be sent back for the same reason. ESSENTIALS OF SUCCESS 207 But my supporting parties had another duty to per- form, only a little less important than the one already noted; that was to keep the trail open for the rapid return of the main party. The magnitude of this duty is clear. The ice of the polar sea is not an immovable surface. Twenty- four hours — or even twelve hours — of strong wind, even in the depth of the coldest winter, will set the big floes grinding and twisting among themselves, crushing up into pressure ridges in one place, breaking into leads in another place. Under normal conditions, however, this movement of the ice is not very great in a period of eight or ten days, so that a party starting back over an outward trail at the end of several days is able to knit together all faults and breaks in the trail that have occurred dur- ing that period by reason of the movement of the ice. The second supporting party, starting back several days later from a point still farther on, knits together the broken ends of the trail of its own division; and when it comes upon the trail of the first supporting party, reunites such other breaks as have occurred since the first supporting party went over it on its way back to land. So with the third and fourth supporting parties. When I speak of knitting together breaks in the trail, I mean simply that the passage of the supporting party from that point where the trail was broken by the movement of the ice to the point where the trail went on again, some distance either to the east or west, would itself renew the broken trail, the passage of the men and dog teams packing down the ice and snow. 208 THENORTHPOLE So that when the main party came back it would simply follow the track of the supporting party, and not have to scout for the trail. As a result of this method of keeping the return trail continuously open, when the main party starts to return it has a continuous trail back to the land, which it can follow with from fifty to one hundred per cent, greater speed than it was possible to make on the outward journey. The reasons for this are obvious: no time is wasted in selecting and breaking a trail; the dogs are more energetic when following a beaten track and when on the road home; no time is wasted in making camp, the snow igloos built on the outward journey being reoccupied on the return journey. It must be understood that when each supporting party reached the land again, its work in regard to the polar dash was over. It did not come back onto the ice with any further supplies for the main party. At the very end, when the supporting parties have performed their important work of trail-breaking and transportation of supplies, the main party for the final journey must be small and carefully selected, as the small party resulting from the successive selection of the fittest, can travel much faster than a large one. Each division of four men was absolutely independ- ent and had its complete traveling outfit ; in fact, except for the alcohol stove and cooking utensils, each sledge was complete in itself. On each sledge were the pro- visions for men and dogs, and clothing for the driver. The standard sledge load would support the driver and the dog team for about fifty days, and by sacrificing a few dogs and using them as food for the other dogs and TYPICAL VIEW OF THE ICE OF THE ARCTIC OCEAN, NORTH OF GRANT LAND TYPICAL CAMP ON THE ICE ESSENTIALS OF SUCCESS 209 the men, this time could have been extended to sixty days. Had any sledge and its provisions been cut off from the rest of the division, the man with it would have had everything he needed, except the cooking outfit. Had the sledge which carried the alcohol stove been lost, either in a lead or otherwise, the party to which it belonged would have had to double up with one of the other divisions. The new alcohol stove, the design of which I had perfected during the winter, was used altogether on this northern sledge trip. We did not carry oil-stoves at all, except some very small ones with two-inch wicks, which we used for drying mittens. The standard method for loading each sledge was as follows : On the bottom was a layer of dog pemmican in red tins, covering the entire length and width of the sledge; on this were two tins of biscuit, and crew pemmican in blue tins; then the tins of alcohol and condensed milk, a small skin rug for the man to sleep on at night in the igloo, snowshoes and spare footgear, a pickax and a saw knife for cutting snow blocks. Practically the only extra items of wearing apparel which were carried were a few pairs of Eskimo sealskin kamiks (boots), for it can readily be imagined that several hundred miles of such walking and stumbling over snow and ice would be rather hard on any kind of footgear which could be made. Compactness was the main idea in packing one of these sledges, the center of gravity of the load being brought as low as possible in order that the sledges might not easily overturn. The standard daily ration for work on the final 210 THE NORTH POLE sledge journey toward the Pole on all expeditions has been as follows: ; 1 lb. pemmican, 1 lb. ship's biscuit, 4 oz. condensed milk, J oz. compressed tea, 6 oz. liquid fuel, alcohol or petroleum. A total of 2 lbs. 4£ oz. of solids per man, per day. On this ration a man can work hard and keep in good condition in the lowest temperatures for a very long time. I believe that no other item of food, either for heat or muscle building, is needed. The daily ration for the dogs is one pound of pem- mican per day; but so hardy are these descendants of the arctic wolves that when there is a scarcity of food they can work for a long time on very little to eat. I have, however, always endeavored so to proportion provisions to the length of time in the field, that the dogs should be at least as well fed as myself. A part of the scientific work of the expedition was a series of deep-sea soundings from Cape Columbia to the Pole. The sounding apparatus of the expedition on leaving Cape Columbia comprised two wooden reels of a length equal to the width of the sledge, a detachable wooden crank to go on each end of the reel, to each reel a thousand fathoms (six thousand feet) of specially made steel piano wire of a diameter .028 inches, and one fourteen-pound lead having at its lower end a small bronze clam-shell device, self-tripping when it reached the bottom, for the purpose of bringing up samples of the ocean bed. The weights of this outfit were as fol- lows: each thousand fathoms of wire 12.42 pounds, each wooden reel 18 pounds, each lead 14 pounds. A complete thousand-fathom outfit weighed 44.42 pounds. ESSENTIALS OF SUCCESS 211 The two outfits, therefore, weighed 89 pounds, and a third extra lead brought this total up to 103 pounds. Both the sounding leads and the wire were made especially for the expedition, and so far as I know they were the lightest, for their capacity, that have ever been used. One sounding apparatus was carried by the main division and the other by the pioneer party, in the early stages of our progress. When there was a lead we sounded from the edge of it; when there was no open water we made a hole in the ice if we could find any that was thin enough for the purpose. Two men could readily make these deep-sea sound- ings by reason of the lightness of the equipment. The distance which we traveled day by day was at first determined by dead reckoning, to be verified later by observations for latitude. Dead reckoning was simply the compass course for direction, and for distance the mean estimate of Bartlett, Marvin, and myself as to the length of the day's march. On board ship dead reckoning is the compass course for direction and the reading of the log for distance. On the inland ice of Greenland my dead reckoning was the compass course, and the reading of my odometer, a wheel with a cyclome- ter registering apparatus. This could not possibly be used on the ice of the polar sea, as it would be smashed to pieces in the rough going. One might say in general that dead reckoning on the polar ice is the personal estimate of approximate distance, always checked and corrected from time to time by astro- nomical observations. Three members of the expedition had had sufficient 212 THENORTHPOLE experience in traveling over arctic ice to enable them to estimate a day's journey very closely. These three were Bartlett, Marvin, and myself. When we checked up our dead reckoning by astronomical observations, the mean of our three estimates was found to be a satisfactory approximation to the results of the observations. It goes without saying that mere dead reckoning, entirely unchecked by astronomical observations, would be insufficient for scientific purposes. During the earlier stages of our journey there was no sun by which to take observations. Later, when we had sunlight, we took what observations were necessary to check our dead reckonings — but no more, since I did not wish to waste the energies or strain the eyes of Marvin, Bart- lett, or myself. As a matter of fact observations were taken every five marches, as soon as it was possible to take them at all. CHAPTER XXIII OFF ACROSS THE FROZEN SEA AT LAST THE work of the expedition, to which all the former months of detail were merely pre- liminary, began with Bartlett's departure from the Roosevelt on the 15th of February for the final sledge journey toward the Pole. The preceding summer we had driven the ship through the almost solid ice of the channels lying between Etah and Cape Sheridan; we had hunted through the long twilight of the autumn to supply ourselves with meat; we had lived through the black and melancholy months-long arctic night, sustaining our spirits with the hope of final success when the returning light should enable us to attack the problem of our passage across the ice of the polar sea. Now these things were all behind us, and the final work was to begin. It was ten o'clock on the morning of February 22d — Washington's Birthday — when I finally got away from the ship and started on the journey toward the Pole. This was one day earlier than I had left the ship three years before on the same errand. I had with me two of the younger Eskimos, Arco and Kudlooktoo, two sledges and sixteen dogs. The weather was thick, the air was filled with a light snow, and the temperature was 31° below zero. There was now light enough to travel by at ten 213 214 THENORTHPOLE o'clock in the morning. When Bartlett had left the ship a week before, it was still so dark that he had been obliged to use a lantern in order to follow the trail northward along the ice-foot. When I finally got away from the ship, there were in the field, for the northern work, seven members of the expedition, nineteen Eskimos, one hundred and forty dogs, and twenty-eight sledges. As already stated, the six advance divisions were to meet me at Cape Colum- bia on the last day of February. These parties, as well as my own, had all followed the regular trail to Cape Columbia, which had been kept open during the fall and winter by the hunting parties and supply-trains. This trail followed the ice-foot along the coast the greater part of the way, only taking to the land occa- sionally to cut across a peninsula and thus shorten the road. On the last day of February Bartlett and Borup got away to the North with their divisions, as soon as it was light enough to travel. The weather still remained clear, calm, and cold. After the pioneer division had started north, all the remaining sledges were lined up, and I examined them to see that each had the standard load and full equipment. On leaving the Roosevelt I had in the field exactly enough dogs to put twenty teams of seven dogs each on the ice, and had counted on doing this; but while we were at Cape Columbia the throat distemper broke out in one team, and six dogs died. This left me only enough for nineteen teams. My plans were further disarranged by the disabling of two Eskimos. I had counted on having a pickax brigade, composed of Marvin, MacMillan, and Dr. ACROSS THE FROZEN SEA 215 Goodsell, ahead of the main party, improving the road, but found that two Eskimos would be unfit to go on the ice — one having a frosted heel, and the other a swollen knee. This depletion in the ranks of sledge drivers meant that Marvin and MacMillan would each have to drive a dog team, and that the pickax squad would be reduced to one man — Dr. Goodsell. As it turned out, this did not make much difference. The going was not so rough in the beginning as I had anticipated, and most of the pickax work that was required could be done by the drivers of the sledges as they reached the difficult places. When I awoke before light on the morning of March 1st, the wind was whistling about the igloo. This phenomenon, appearing on the very day of our start, after so many days of calm, seemed the perversity of hard luck. I looked through the peep-hole of the igloo and saw that the weather was still clear, and that the stars were scintillating like diamonds. The wind was from the east — a direction from which I had never known it to blow in all my years of experience in that region. This unusual circumstance, a really remark- able thing, was of course attributed by my Eskimos to the interference of their arch enemy, Tornarsuk — in plain English, the devil — with my plans. After breakfast, with the first glimmer of daylight, we got outside the igloo and looked about. The wind was whistling wildly around the eastern end of Inde- pendence Bluff; and the ice-fields to the north, as well as all the lower part of the land, were invisible in that gray haze which, every experienced arctic traveler knows, means vicious wind. A party less perfectly 216 THENORTHPOLE clothed than we were would have found conditions very trying that morning. Some parties would have considered the weather impossible for traveling, and would have gone back to their igloos. But, taught by the experience of three years before, I had given the members of my party instructions to wear their old winter clothing from the ship to Cape Columbia and while there, and to put on the new outfit made for the sledge journey when leaving Columbia. Therefore we were all in our new and perfectly dry fur clothes and could bid defiance to the wind. One by one the divisions drew out from the main army of sledges and dog teams, took up Bartlett's trail over the ice and disappeared to the northward in the wind haze. This departure of the procession was a noiseless one, for the freezing east wind carried all sounds away. It was also invisible after the first few moments — men and dogs being swallowed up almost immediately in the wind haze and the drifting snow. I finally brought up the rear with my own division, after getting things into some semblance of order, and giving the two disabled men left at Cape Columbia their final instructions to remain quietly in the igloo there, using certain supplies which were left with them until the first supporting party returned to Cape Columbia, when they were to go back with it to the ship. An hour after I left camp my division had crossed the glacial fringe, and the last man, sledge, and dog of the Northern party — comprising altogether twenty- four men, nineteen sledges, and one hundred and thirty- three dogs — was at last on the ice of the Arctic Ocean, about latitude 83°. ACROSS THE FROZEN SEA 217 Our start from the land this last time was eight days earlier than the start three years before, six days of calendar time and two days of distance, our present latitude being about two marches farther north than Cape Hecla, our former point of departure. When we were far enough out on the ice to be away from the shelter of the land, we got the full force of the violent wind. But it was not in our faces, and as we had a trail which could be followed, even if with heads down and eyes half closed, the wind did not impede us or cause us serious discomfort. Nevertheless, I did not like to dwell upon the inevitable effect which it would have upon the ice farther out — the opening of leads across our route. When we dropped off the edge of the glacial fringe onto the pressure ridges of the tidal crack already described, in spite of the free use of our pickaxes and the pickaxes of the pioneer division, which had gone before, the trail was a most trying one for men, dogs, and sledges, especially the old Eskimo type of sledge. The new "Peary" sledges, by reason of their length and shape, rode much more easily and with less strain than the others. Every one was glad to reach the surface of the old floes beyond this crazy zone of ice which was several miles in width. As soon as we struck the old floes the going was much better. There appeared to be no great depth of snow, only a few inches, and this had been hammered fairly hard by the winter winds. Still the surface over which we traveled was very uneven, and in many places was distinctly trying to the sledges, the wood of which was made brittle by the low tempera- ture, now in the minus fifties. On the whole, however, 218 THE NORTH POLE I felt that if we encountered nothing worse than this in the first hundred miles from the land we should have no serious cause for complaint. A little farther on, while walking alone behind my division, I met Kyutah of Marvin's division, hurry- ing back with empty sledge. He had smashed his sledge so badly that it seemed better to go back to Cape Columbia for one of the reserve sledges there than to attempt to repair the broken one. He was cautioned not to waste a minute and to be sure to overtake us at our camp that night, and he was soon disappearing into the wind haze in our rear. Still farther on I met Kudlooktoo, returning on the same errand, and a little later came upon some of the other divisions that had been obliged to stop to repair their sledges which had suffered severely in their encounters with the rough ice. Finally I reached the captain's first camp, ten miles out. Here I took one of the two igloos, and Marvin took the other. The divisions of Goodsell, MacMillan, and Henson were to build their own igloos this first night. Bartlett and Borup being in advance, would each build an igloo at every one of their camps. I, being the oldest man in the party, was to take one of these, and the order of precedence in which the divisions of Marvin, MacMillan, Goodsell, and Henson were to occupy the second of the already constructed igloos had been determined by lot at Columbia, the first lot falling to Marvin. Later, when Bartlett's division alone was in the lead, there was only one igloo already built at each camp on the line of march. The day twilight, which now lasted about twelve ACROSS THE FROZEN SEA 219 hours, had disappeared entirely by the time the last sledge reached this first camp. It had been a trying day for the sledges. The new "Peary" type, by reason of its shape and greater length, had come off best. Though two of these had suffered minor damages, none of them had been put out of commission. Two of the old Eskimo type had been smashed completely, and another nearly so. The dogs were soon fed, and each division went for supper and rest to its own igloo, leaving the rugged surface of the ice to the darkness, and the howling wind and drift. The march had been a somewhat hard one for me, because, for the first time in sixteen years, the leg which I had broken in Greenland, in 1891, had been causing me considerable trouble. The door of my igloo had scarcely been closed by a block of snow, when one of Henson's Eskimos came running over, blue with fright, to tell me that Tornar- suk was in camp, and that they could not light the alco- hol in their new stove. I did not understand this, as the stoves had all been tested on board ship and had worked to perfection; but I got out and went over to Henson's igloo, where it appeared that he had used up a whole box of matches in unsuccessful efforts to light his stove. Our stoves were of an entirely new design, using no wTicks, and a moment's examination disclosed the trouble. It was so cold that there was no vaporization from the alcohol, and it would not light directly as at higher temperatures. A bit of paper dropped into it and lighted was the solution, and there was no further trouble. The failure of even one of our alcohol stoves would 220 THE NORTH POLE have seriously impaired our chances, as the men of that division could not have boiled the tea which is abso- lutely necessary for work in those low temperatures. Kyutah, the Eskimo who had gone back to land with his broken sledge, came in during the night, but Kud- looktoo failed to put in an appearance. Thus the end of our first day over the polar ice found the expedition one man short. CHAPTER XXIV THE FIRST OPEN WATER THE first serious obstacle of the sledge journey was encountered the second day out from land. The day was cloudy, the wind continuing to blow from the east with unabated violence. Again I intentionally brought up the rear of my division, in order to see that everything was going right and that every one was accounted for. The going was much the same as on the previous day, rough and trying to the endurance of men, dogs and sledges. When we had made about three-quarters of a march we saw ahead of us a dark ominous cloud upon the northern horizon, which always means open water. There is always fog in the neighborhood of the leads. The open water supplies the evaporation, the cold air acts as a condenser, and when the wind is blowing just right this forms a fog so dense that at times it looks as black as the smoke of a prairie fire. Sure enough, just ahead of us were black spots against the snow which I knew to be my various divisions held up by a lead. When we came up with them I saw a lane of open water, about a quarter of a mile wide, which had formed since the captain had passed the day before. The wind had been getting in its work! I gave the word to camp (there was nothing else to 221 222 THENORTHPOLE do), and while the igloos were being built, Marvin and MacMillan made a sounding from the edge of the lead, getting ninety-six fathoms. This march to the edge of the lead put us beyond the British record of 83° 20' made by Captain Markham, R. N., north of Cape Joseph Henry, May 12, 1876. Before daylight the next morning we heard the grinding of the ice, which told us that the lead was at last crushing together, and I gave the signal to the other three igloos, by pounding with a hatchet on the ice floor of my igloo, to fire up and get breakfast in a hurry. The morning was clear again, excepting for the wind haze, but the wind still continued to blow with unabated violence. With the first of the daylight we were hurrying across the lead on the raftering young ice, which was moving, crushing, and piling up with the closing of the sides of the lead. If the reader will imagine crossing a river on a succession of gigantic shingles, one, two, or three deep and all afloat and moving, he will perhaps form an idea of the uncertain surface over which we crossed this lead. Such a passage is distinctly trying, as any moment may lose a sledge and its team, or plunge a member of the party into the icy water. On the other side there was no sign of Bartlett's trail. This meant that the lateral movement (that is east and west) of the ice shores of the lead had carried the trail along with it. After an hour or two of marching, we found our- selves in the fork of two other leads, and unable to move in any direction. The young ice (that is, the recently frozen ice) on the more westerly of these leads, though FIRST OPEN WATER 223 too thin to sustain the weight of the sledges, was yet strong enough to bear an Eskimo, and I sent Kyutah to the west to scout for the captain's trail, while the other Eskimos built out of snow blocks a shelter from the wind, and repaired some minor damages to our sledges. In half an hour or so Kyutah returned from the west, signaling that he had found Bartlett's trail. Soon after he reached us a movement of the shores of the lead to the west crushed up the narrow ribbon of unsafe young ice over which he had passed, and we were able to hurry across with sledges and push west for the trail, which was about a mile and a half distant. When we reached the trail we saw, by the tracks of men and dogs pointing south, that Borup had already passed that way on his return to Columbia, in accord- ance with my program. He had probably crossed the lead and was now scouting for our trail somewhere on the southerly side. As soon as Marvin, who was following me, came up, I had Kyutah throw off his sledge load, and sent Mar- vin and the Eskimo on the back trail to "Crane City," Cape Columbia. I did this partly because of the pos- sibility that there might be complications there in which Borup, who was new to the work, would feel the need of a man of Marvin's wider experience, and partly because many of our alcohol and petroleum tins had sprung leaks in the rough going of the last few days, and an additional supply was needed to make up for present and possible future loss. The change of the loads was effected in a few minutes, without delay to the main party, which kept right on, and Marvin and his dusky companion were soon out of sight. 224 THENORTHPOLE The captain's third camp was reached before dark that night. All day long the wind kept us company, and we could see by the water clouds all about us that the leads were open here and there in every direction. Fortunately none of them immediately crossed our trail, and the going was much as on the previous day. During this march we saw, above the summits of the great land mountains which were still visible to the south of us, a naming blade of yellow light which reached half way to the zenith — in other words, after nearly five months, we could almost see the sun again as he skimmed along just under the southern horizon. Only a day or two more, and his light would shine directly upon us. The feeling of the arctic traveler for the returning sun after the long darkness is a feeling hard to interpret to those who are accustomed to seeing the sun every morning. On the following day, March 4, the weather changed. The sky was overcast with clouds, the wind had swung completely around to the west during the night, there were occasional squalls of light snow, and the thermome- ter had risen to only 9° below zero. This temperature, after that of the minus fifties, in which we had been traveling, seemed almost oppressively warm. The leads were even more numerous than the day before, and their presence was clearly outlined by the heavy black clouds. A mile or two east of us there was a lead stretching far to the north and directly parallel with our course, which did not cause us any apprehension. But a broad and ominous band of black extending far to the east and west across our course and apparently ten or fifteen miles to the north of us, gave me serious concern. FIRST OPEN WATER 225 Evidently the ice was all abroad in every direction, and the high temperature and snow accompanying the west wind proved that ther» was a large amount of open water in that direction. The outlook was not pleasant, but as some com- pensation the going was not quite so rough. As we advanced, I was surprised to find that as yet none of the leads cut Bartlett's trail. Consequently we made good progress, and though the march was distinctly longer than the previous one, we reached Bartlett's igloo in good time. Here I found a note from Bartlett which had evi- dently been despatched by an Eskimo, informing me that he was in camp about a mile farther north — held up by open water. This explained the black, ominous band which I had been watching for hours on the northern horizon, and which had gradually risen as we approached until it was now almost overhead. Pushing on, we soon reached the captain's camp. There I found the familiar unwelcome sight which I had so often before me on the expedition of 1905-06 — the white expanse of ice cut by a river of inky black water, throwing off dense clouds of vapor which gathered in a sullen canopy overhead, at times swinging lower with the wind and obscuring the opposite shore of this malevolent Styx. The lead had opened directly through the heavy floes, and, considering that these floes are sometimes one hundred feet in thickness, and of almost unimaginable weight, the force that could open such a river through them is comparable with the forces that threw up the THE NORTH POLE mountains on the continents and opened the channels between the lands. Bartlett told me that during the previous night in the camp a mile farther south where I had found his note, the noise caused by the opening of this great lead had awakened him from sleep. The open water was now about a quarter of a mile in width, and extended east and west as far as we could see when we climbed to the highest pinnacle of ice in the neighborhood of our camp. Two or three miles to the east of us, as we could see by the vapor hanging over it, the north and south lead which had paralleled our last two marches intersected the course of the lead beside which we were encamped. Though farther south than where we had encoun- tered the "Big Lead" in 1906, north of Cape Hecla, this one had every resemblance to that great river of open water which on the way up we had called "the Hudson," and on our way back — when it seemed that those black waters had cut us off forever from the land — we had renamed "the Styx." The resemblance was so strong that even the Eskimos who had been with me on the expedition three years before spoke about it. I was glad to see that there was no lateral movement in the ice; that is, that the two shores of the lead were not moving east or west, or in opposite directions. The lead was simply an opening in the ice under the pres- sure of the wind and the spring tides, which were now swelling to the full moon on the 6th. Captain Bartlett, with his usual thoughtfulness, had an igloo already built for me near his own when I arrived. While the other three divisions were building FIRST OPEN WATER 227 their igloos the captain took a sounding, and obtained a depth of one hundred and ten fathoms. We were now about forty -five miles north of Cape Columbia. The next day, March 5, was a fine, clear day, with a light westerly breeze, and a temperature of 20° below zero. For a little while about noon the sun lay, a great yellow ball, along the southern horizon. Our satisfaction at seeing it again was almost compensation for our impatience at being delayed there — beside the gradually widening lead. Had it not been cloudy on the 4th, we should have seen the sun one day earlier. During the night the lead had narrowed somewhat, raftering the young ice. Then, under the impulse of the tidal wave, it had opened wider than ever, leaving, in spite of the constantly forming ice, a broad band of black water before us. I sent MacMillan back with three dog teams and three Eskimos to bring up the load which Kyutah had thrown off before he went back to the land with Marvin, and also to bring up a portion of Borup's cache which we had not been able to load on our sledges. MacMillan also took a note to leave at Kyutah's cache, telling Marvin where we were held up, and urging him to hurry forward with all possible speed. The remainder of the party occupied themselves repairing damaged sledges and in drying their clothing over the little oil hand lamps. All the next day we were still there beside the lead. Another day, and we were still there. Three, four, five days passed in intolerable inaction, and still the broad line of black water spread before us. Those were days of good traveling weather, with temperatures ranging from minus 5° to minus 32°, a period of time 228 THE NORTH POLE which might have carried us beyond the 85th parallel but for those three days of wind at the start which had been the cause of this obstruction in our course. During those five days I paced back and forth, deploring the luck which, when everything else was favorable — weather, ice, dogs, men, and equipment — should thus impede our way with open water. Bartlett and I did not talk much to each other during those days. It was a time when silence seemed more expressive than any words. We looked at each other occasionally, and I could see from the tightening of Bartlett' s jaw all that I needed to know of what was going on in his mind. Each day the lead continued to widen before us, and each day we looked anxiously southward along the trail for Marvin and Borup to come up. But they did not come. Only one who had been in a similar position could understand the gnawing torment of those days of forced inaction, as I paced the floe in front of the igloos most of the time, climbing every little while to the top of the ice pinnacle back of the igloos to strain my eyes through the dim light to the south, sleeping through a few hours out of each twenty-four, with one ear open for the slightest noise, rising repeatedly to listen more intently for the eagerly desired sound of incoming dogs — all this punctuated, in spite of my utmost efforts at self-control, with memories of the effect of the delay at the "Big Lead" on my prospects in the previous expedi- tion. Altogether, I think that more of mental wear and tear was crowded into those days than into all the rest of the fifteen months we were absent from civilization. FIRST OPEN WATER 229 The additional supply of oil and alcohol, which Marvin and Borup were to bring to me, was, I felt, vital to our success; but even if they did not come in with it, I could not turn back here. While pacing the floe, I figured out how we should use our sledges piece- meal as fuel in our cookers, to make tea after the oil and alcohol were gone. By the time the wood of the sledges was exhausted, it would be warm enough so that we could suck ice or snow to assuage our thirst, and get along with our pemmican and raw dog without tea. But, though I planned, it was a plan of desperation. It was a harrowing time, that period of waiting. CHAPTER XXV SOME OF MY ESKIMOS LOSE THEIR NERVE THE protracted delay, hard as it was upon all the members of the expedition, had a demoraliz- ing psychological effect upon some of my Eskimos. Toward the end of the period of waiting I began to notice that some of them were getting nervous. I would see them talking together in twos and threes, just out of earshot. Finally two of the older men, who had been with me for years and whom I had trusted, came to me pretending to be sick. I have had sufficient experience to know a sick Eskimo when I see one, and the excuses of Pooadloonah and Panikpah did not convince me. I told them by all means to go back to the land just as quickly as they could, and to take with them a note to Marvin, urging him to hurry. I also sent by them a note to the mate of the ship, giving instructions in regard to these two men and their families. As the days went by, other Eskimos began to com- plain of this and that imaginary ailment. Two of them were rendered temporarily unconscious by the fumes of the alcohol cooker in their igloo, frightening all the rest of the Eskimos half out of their wits, and I was seriously puzzled as to what I should do with them. This was an illustration of the fact, which may not have occurred to every one, that the leader of a polar expe- 230 ESKIMOS LOSE NERVE 231 dition has sometimes other things to contend with than the natural conditions of ice and weather. On the 9th or 10th we might possibly have crossed the lead on the young ice, by taking desperate chances ; but, considering our experience of 1906, when we had nearly lost our lives while recrossing the "Big Lead" on the undulating ice, and also considering that Marvin must be somewhere near by this time, I waited these two more days to give him a chance to catch up. MacMillan was invaluable to me during this period. Seeing the restlessness of the Eskimos, and without waiting for any suggestion from me, he gave himself absolutely to the problem of keeping them occupied and interested in games and athletic "stunts" of one kind and another. This was one of those opportunities which circumstances give a man silently to prove the mettle of which he is made. On the evening of March 10, the lead being nearly closed, I gave orders to get under way the next morning. The delay had become unendurable, and I decided to take the chance of Marvin's overtaking us with the oil and alcohol. Of course there was the alternative of my going back to see what was the trouble. But that idea was dismissed. There was little attraction in ninety miles of extra travel, to say nothing of the psychological effect on the members of the expedition. I had no anxiety about the men themselves. Borup, I felt sure, had reached the land without delay. Mar- vin, if he had been held up temporarily by the opening of the shore lead, had the load which had been thrown off by Kudlooktoo when his sledge was smashed, and 232 THENORTHPOLE this load contained all essential items of supplies. But I could not believe that the shore lead had remained open so long. The morning of the 11th was clear and calm, with a temperature of minus 40°, which meant that all the open water was frozen over. We got under way early, leaving in my igloo at this camp the following note for Marvin: 4th Camp, March 11, 1909. Have waited here (6) days. Can wait no longer. We are short of fuel. Push on with all possible speed to overtake us. Shall leave note at each camp. When near us rush light sledge and note of information ahead to overhaul us. Expect send back Dr. & Eskimos 3 to 5 marches from here. He should meet you & give you information. We go straight across this lead (E. S. E.) There has been no lateral motion of the ice during 7 days. Only open and shut. Do not camp here. CROSS THE LEAD. Feed full rations & speed your dogs. It is vital you overtake us and give us fuel. Leaving at 9 a.m., Thursday, Mar. 11. PEARY. P.S. On possibility you arrive too late to follow us, have asked captain take general material from your bags. We crossed the lead without trouble, and made a fair march of not less than twelve miles. This day we crossed seven leads, each being from half a mile to one mile in width, all covered with barely negotiable young ice. At this time the various divisions, including Bart- lett's, were all traveling together. On this march we crossed the 84th parallel. That night the ice was raftering about our camp with the ATHLETIC SPORTS AT THE LEAD CAMP PICKAXING A ROAD THROUGH ZONE OF ROUGH ICE ESKIMOS LOSE NERVE 233 movement of the tide. The continual grinding, groaning, and creaking, as the pieces of ice crunched together, kept up all night long. The noise, how- ever, did not keep me from sleeping, as our igloos were on a heavy ice-floe, which was not likely itself to be broken up, most of the ice around it being young and thin. In the morning it was still clear, and the tempera- ture was down to minus 45°. Again we made a fair march of not less than twelve nautical miles, crossing in the first half many cracks and narrow leads, and in the latter half traversing an unbroken series of old floes. I felt confident that this zone of numerous leads which we had crossed in the last two marches was the "Big Lead," and was of the opinion that we were now safely across it. We hoped that Marvin and Borup, with their men and vital supply of fuel, would get across the "Big Lead" before we had any more wind; for six hours of a good fresh breeze would utterly obliterate our trail, by reason of the movement of the ice, and their search for us in the broad waste of that white world would have been like the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack. The following march, on the 13th, was distinctly crisp. When we started the thermometer was minus 53°, the minimum during the night having been minus 55°; and when the twilight of evening came on it was down to minus 59°. With the bright sunshine at mid- day, and with no wind, in our fur clothing we did not suffer from the cold. The brandy, of course, was solid, the petroleum was white and viscid, and the dogs as 234 THE NORTH POLE they traveled were enveloped in the white cloud of their own breath. I traveled ahead of my division this march, and whenever I looked back could see neither men nor dogs — only a low-lying bank of fog glistening like silver in the horizontal rays of the sun behind it to the south — this fog being the steam of the dog teams and the men. The going during this march was fairly good, except at the beginning, where for about five miles we zig- zagged through a zone of very rough ice. The distance covered was at least twelve miles. Our camp that night was on a large old floe in the lee of a large hummock of ice and snow. Just as we had finished building our igloos, one of the Eskimos who was standing on the top of the hum- mock shouted excitedly: "Kling-mik-sue! " (Dogs are coming.) In a moment I was on the hummock beside him. Looking south I could see, a long distance away, a little bank of silvery white mist lying on our trail. Yes, it was surely the dogs. A little later Seegloo, of Borup's party, dashed up on a light sledge drawn by eight dogs, with a note from Marvin containing the welcome news that he, Borup, and their men had slept the previous night at our second camp back; that they would sleep the next night at our first camp back, and catch up with us on the following day. The rear party, with its precious loads of oil and alcohol, was over the "Big Lead!" Henson at once received instructions to get away early the next morning with his division of Eskimos and sledges, to pioneer the road for the next five marches. ESKIMOS LOSE NERVE 235 The doctor was informed definitely that he was to return to the land the next morning with two men. The rest of the party would remain here repairing sledges and drying clothes until Marvin and Borup came in, when I could reapportion my loads, and send back all superfluous men, dogs, and sledges. That night, my mind again at rest, I slept like a child. In the morning Henson got away early to the north with his pioneer division of three Eskimos, Ootah, Ahwatingwah, Koolootingwah, and sledges and teams. A little later Dr. Goodsell with two Eskimos, Weshar- koopsi and Arco, one sledge, and twelve dogs took the back trail. The doctor had assisted me in every possible way; but his services in the field were gratuitous and were understood so to be. His place was naturally at the ship, where the greater number still remained, for the moral effect of his presence even if his medical services should not be much needed, and I did not feel justified in subjecting him further to the dangers of the leads with their treacherous young ice. The latitude where the doctor turned back was about 84° 29'. In the latter part of the afternoon, March 14, another cloud of silvery smoke was seen advancing along our trail, and a little later Marvin came swinging in at the head of the rear division, men and dogs steam- ing like a squadron of battle-ships, and bringing in an ample supply of fuel. Otherwise his loads were light, to permit rapid traveling. Many times in the past had I been glad to see the true eyes of Ross Marvin, but never more glad than this time. The sledges which were now repaired were laden with 236 THE NORTH POLE the standard loads already described, and I found that I had just twelve. This left some men and dogs over, so that it was not serious news when MacMillan called my attention to a frosted heel with which he had been worrying along for several days without saying anything to any one about it. I saw at once that the only thing for him to do was to turn back. It was a disappointment to me to lose MacMillan so early, as I had hoped that he would be able to go to a comparatively high latitude; but his disability did not affect the main proposition. I had ample personnel, as well as provisions, sledges, and dogs; and the men, like the equipment, were interchangeable. Here it may be well to note that, beyond my saying to Bartlett at Cape Columbia that I hoped conditions might be such as to give me the benefit of his energy and sturdy shoulders to some point beyond Abruzzi's farthest, no member of the party knew how far he was to go, or when he was to turn back. Yet this made no difference in the eagerness of their work. Naturally I had my definite program; but conditions or accidents might necessitate such instant and radical modifica- tions of it that it seemed hardly worth while to make it known. Few, if any, other explorers have had so efficient and congenial a party as mine this last time. Every man was glad to subordinate his own personal feelings and ambitions to the ultimate success of the expedition. Marvin made a sounding about a half mile north of the camp and got eight hundred and twenty-five fathoms, which substantiated my belief that we had crossed the "Big Lead." This lead probably follows ESKIMOS LOSE NERVE 237 the continental shelf which this sounding showed to be between there and Camp No. 4 (with the proba- bility of its being between Camp Nos. 4 and 5), probably at about the 84th parallel. The continental shelf is simply a submerged plateau surrounding all the continent, the "Big Lead" marking the northern edge of that shelf where it dips into the polar sea. Monday, March 15, was also clear and cold, with a temperature between 45° and 50° below zero. The wind had shifted again to the east and was very pene- trating. Bartlett and Marvin started off with the pickaxes as soon as they had finished their morning tea and pemmican, and their divisions, with Borup and his division, followed as soon as their sledges were stowed. MacMillan got away for Columbia with two Eskimos, two sledges, and fourteen dogs. The main expedition now comprised sixteen men, twelve sledges, and one hundred dogs. One sledge had been broken up to repair the others, three had been taken back with the returning parties, and two were left at this camp to be utilized on the return. Of the sledges that now went on, seven were the new type of Peary sledge and five were the old Eskimo pattern. After saying good by to MacMillan I followed the other three divisions to the north, bringing up the rear as previously. The going in this march was similar to that of the previous one, fairly good, as it was over the old floes. The soreness in my fractured leg which had troubled me more or less all the way from Cape Columbia was now almost entirely gone. Late in the afternoon we began to hear loud reports 238 THENORTHPOLE and rumblings among the floes, as well as the more sibilant sound of the raftering young ice in various directions. This meant more open water ahead of us. Soon an active lead cut right across our path, and on the farther or northern side of it we could see that the ice was moving. The lead seemed to narrow toward the west, and we followed it a little way until we came to a place where there were large pieces of floating ice, some of them fifty or a hundred feet across. We got the dogs and sledges from one piece of ice to another — the whole forming a sort of pontoon bridge. As Borup was getting his team across the open crack between two pieces of floating ice, the dogs slipped and went into the water. Leaping forward, the vigorous young athlete stopped the sledge from follow- ing the dogs, and, catching hold of the traces that fas- tened the dogs to the sledge, he pulled them bodily out of the water. A man less quick and muscular than Borup might have lost the whole team as well as the sledge laden with five hundred pounds of supplies, which, considering our position far out in that icy wilderness, were worth more to us than their weight in diamonds. Of course, had the sledge gone in, the weight of it would have carried the dogs to the bottom of the sea. We drew a long breath, and, reaching the solid ice on the other side of this pontoon bridge, plunged on to the north. But we had gone only a short distance when right in front of us the ice separated with loud reports, forming another open lead, and we were obliged to camp. The temperature that night was 50° below zero; there was a fresh breeze from the southeast and ESKIMOS LOSE NERVE 239 enough moisture in the open water close by us to give the wind a keen edge, which made the time occupied in building igloos decidedly unpleasant. But we were all so thankful over our escape from losing that imperiled sledge with its precious load that personal discomforts seemed indeed of small account. CHAPTER XXVI BORUP S FARTHEST NORTH THAT night was one of the noisiest that I have ever spent in an igloo, and none of us slept very soundly. Hour after hour the rumbling and complaining of the ice continued, and it would not have surprised us much if at any moment the ice had split directly across our camp, or even through the middle of one of our igloos. It was not a pleasant situation, and every member of the party was glad when the time came to get under way again. In the morning we found a passage across the lead a short distance to the east of our camp over some fragments which had become cemented together dur- ing the cold night. We had only gone forward a few hundred yards when we came upon the igloo which Henson had occupied. This did not indicate rapid progress. At the end of six hours we came upon another of Henson's igloos — not greatly to my surprise. I knew, from experience, that yesterday's movement of the ice and the formation of leads about us would take all the spirit out of Henson's party until the main party should overtake them again. Sure enough, the next march was even shorter. At the end of a little over four hours we found Henson and his division in camp, making one sledge out of the remains of two. The 240 - A TYPICAL, EXAMPLE OF THE DIFFICULTIES OF WORKING SLEDGES OVER A PRESSURE RIDGE BORUP'S FARTHEST NORTH 241 damage to the sledges was the reason given for the delay. This march having been largely over a broad zone of rough rubble ice, some of my own sledges had suffered slight damage, and the entire party was now halted and the sledges were overhauled. After a short sleep I put Marvin ahead to pick the trail, with instructions to try to make two long marches to bring up the average. Marvin got away very early, followed a little later by Bartlett, Borup, and Henson, with pickaxes to improve further the trail made by Marvin. After that came the sledges of their divisions, I, as usual, bringing up the rear with my division, that I might have every- thing ahead of me and know just how things were going. Marvin gave us a good march of not less than seventeen miles, at first over very rough ice, then over larger and more level floes, with a good deal of young ice between. At the end of this march, on the evening of the 19th, while the Eskimos were building the igloos, I outlined to the remaining members of my party, Bartlett, Marvin, Borup, and Henson, the program which I should endeavor to follow from that time on. At the end of the next march (which would be five marches from where MacMillan and the doctor turned back) Borup would return with three Eskimos, twenty dogs, and one sledge, leaving the main party — twelve men, ten sledges, and eighty dogs. Five marches farther on Marvin would return with two Eskimos, twenty dogs, and one sledge, leaving the main party with nine men, seven sledges, and sixty dogs. Five marches farther 242 THENORTHPOLE on Bartlett would return with two Eskimos, twenty dogs, and one sledge, leaving the main party six men, forty dogs, and five sledges. I hoped that with good weather, and the ice no worse than that which we had already encountered, Borup might get beyond 85°, Marvin beyond 86°, and Bart- lett beyond 87°. At the end of each five-march sec- tion I should send back the poorest dogs, the least effective Eskimos, and the worst damaged sledges. As will appear, this program was carried out with- out a hitch, and the farthest of each division was even better than I had hoped. At this camp the supplies, equipment, and personal gear of Borup and his Eski- mos were left for them to pick up on their way home, thus avoiding the transportation of some two hundred and fifty pounds out and back over the next march. The 19th was a brilliant day of yellow sunlight. The season was now so far advanced that the sun, circling as always in this latitude around and around the heavens, was above the horizon nearly half the time, and during the other half there was almost no darkness — only a gray twilight. The temperature this day was in the minus fifties, as evidenced by the frozen brandy and the steam- enshrouded dogs; but bubbles in all my spirit ther- mometers prevented a definite temperature reading. These bubbles were caused by the separation of the column, owing to the jolting of the thermometer with our constant stumbling over the rough ice of the polar sea. The bubbles might be removed at night in camp, but this required some time, and the accurate noting of temperatures during our six or seven weeks' march BORUP'S FARTHEST NORTH 243 to the Pole and back did not seem sufficiently vital to our enterprise to make me rectify the thermometer every night. When I was not too tired, I got the bubbles out. Again Marvin, who was still pioneering the trail, gave us a fair march of fifteen miles or more, at first over heavy and much-raftered ice, then over floes of greater size and more level surface. But the reader must understand that what we regard as a level surface on the polar ice might be considered decidedly rough going anywhere else. The end of this march put us between 85° 7' and 85° 30', or about the latitude of our "Storm Camp'* of three years before; but we were twenty-three days ahead of that date, and in the matter of equipment, supplies, and general condition of men and dogs there was no comparison. Bartlett's estimate of our posi- tion at this camp was 85° 30', Marvin's 85° 25', and my own 85° 20'. The actual position, as figured back later from the point where we were first able, by reason of the increasing altitude of the sun, to take an obser- vation for latitude, was 85° 23'. In the morning Bartlett again took charge of the pioneer division, starting early with two Eskimos, sixteen dogs, and two sledges. Borup, a little later, with three Eskimos, sixteen dogs, and one sledge, started on his return to the land. I regretted that circumstances made it expedient to send Borup back from here in command of the sec- ond supporting party. This young Yale athlete was a valuable member of the expedition. His whole heart was in the work, and he had hustled his heavy sledge 244 THENORTHPOLE along and driven his dogs with almost the skill of an Eskimo, in a way that commanded the admiration of the whole party and would have made his father's eyes glisten could he have seen. But with all his enthusiasm for this kind of work, he was still inexperi- enced in the many treacheries of the ice; and I was not willing to subject him to any further risks. He had also, like MacMillan, frosted one of his heels. It was a serious disappointment to Borup that he was obliged to turn back; but he had reason to feel proud of his work — even as I was proud of him. He had carried the Yale colors close up to eighty -five and a half degrees, and had borne them over as many miles of polar ice as Nansen had covered in his entire jour- ney from his ship to his "farthest north." I can still see Borup's eager and bright young face, slightly clouded with regret, as he turned away at last and disappeared with his Eskimos and steaming dogs among the ice hummocks of the back trail. A few minutes after Borup went south, Henson with two Eskimos, three sledges, and twenty -four dogs began to follow Bartlett's trail to the north. Marvin and myself, with four Eskimos, five sledges, and forty dogs, were to remain in camp twelve hours longer in order to give Bartlett one march the start of us. With the departure of Borup's supporting party, the main expedition comprised twelve men, ten sledges, and eighty dogs. From this camp on, each division comprised three men instead of four; but I did not reduce the division daily allowance of tea, milk, and alcohol. This meant a slightly greater individual consumption of these BORUP'S FARTHEST NORTH 245 supplies, but so long as we kept up the present rate of speed I considered it justified. With the increasing appetite caused by the continuous work, three men were easily able to consume four men's tea rations. The daily allowance of pemmican and biscuit I could not increase. Three men in an igloo were also more comfortable than four, and the smaller igloos just about balanced in time and energy the lesser number of men that were left to build them. We had now resumed the program of advance party and main party, which had been interrupted during the last two marches. The now continuous daylight permitted a modification of the previous arrangement so as to bring the two parties in touch every twenty- four hours. The main party remained in camp for about twelve hours after the departure of the advance. The advance party made its march, camped, and turned in. When the main party had covered the march made by the advance party and arrived at their igloos, the advance party broke out and started on while the main party occupied their igloos and turned in for sleep. Thus I was in touch with Bartlett and his division every twenty-four hours, to make any changes in the loads that seemed advisable, and to encourage the men if necessary. At this stage in our journey Henson's party traveled with Bartlett's pioneer party, and Marvin and his men traveled with mine. This arrangement kept the parties closer together, relieved the pioneers of all apprehension, and reduced by fifty per cent, the chance of separation of the par- ties by the opening of a lead. Occasionally I found it advisable to transfer an 246 THE NORTH POLE Eskimo from one division to another. Sometimes, as has been seen, these odd people are rather difficult to manage; and if Bartlett or any other member of the expedition did not like a certain Eskimo, or had trouble in managing him, I would take that Eskimo into my own division, giving the other party one of my Eski- mos, because I could get along with any of them. In other words, I gave the other men their preferences, taking myself the men who were left. Of course, when I came to make up my division for the final dash, I took my favorites among the most efficient of the Eskimos. At the next camp Marvin made a sounding and to our surprise reached bottom at only three hundred and ten fathoms, but in the process of reeling up the wire it separated, and the lead and some of the wire were lost. Soon after midnight we got under way, Marvin taking a sledge, and after a short march — only some ten miles — we reached Bartlett's camp. He had been delayed by the breaking of one of his sledges, and I found one of his men and Henson's party still there repairing the sledge. Bartlett himself had gone on, and Henson and the other men got away soon after our arrival. Marvin made another sounding of seven hundred fathoms and no bottom, unfortunately losing two pickaxes (which had been used in place of a lead) and more of the wire in hauling it up. Then we turned in. It was a fine day, with clear, brilliant sunlight, a fine breeze from the north, and temperature in the minus forties. BORUFS FARTHEST NORTH 247 The next march, on the 22d, was a fair one of not less than fifteen miles. The going was at first tortu- ous, over rough, heavy ice, which taxed the sledges, dogs, and drivers to the utmost; then we struck a direct line across large and level floes. At the end of this march I found that Bartlett and one of his men had already left; but Henson and his party were in their igloo. Ooqueah, of Bartlett's party, whose sledge had broken down the day before, was also in camp. I turned Marvin's sledge over to Ooqueah, so that Bartlett should have no further hindrance in his work of pioneering, and started him and Hen- son's party off. The damaged sledge I turned over to Marvin, giving him a light load. We were not with- out our difficulties at this period of the journey, but our plan was working smoothly and we were all hope- ful and in excellent spirits. CHAPTER XXVII GOOD BY TO MARVIN UP to this time no observations had been taken. The altitude of the sun had been so low as to make observations unreliable. Moreover, we were traveling at a good clip, and the mean estimate of Bartlett, Marvin, and myself, based on our previous ice experience, was sufficient for dead reckoning. Now, a clear, calm day, with the tempera- ture not lower than minus forty, made a checking of our dead reckoning seem desirable. So I had the Eskimos build a wind shelter of snow, in order that Marvin might take a meridian altitude for latitude. I intended that Marvin should take all the observations up to his farthest, and Bartlett all beyond that to his farthest. This was partly to save my eyes, but principally to have independent observations with which to check our advance. The mercury of the artificial horizon was thoroughly warmed in the igloo; a semi-circular wind-guard of snow blocks two tiers high was put up, opening to the south; a musk-ox skin was laid upon the snow inside this; my special instrument box was placed at the south end and firmly bedded into the snow in a level position; the artificial horizon trough, especially devised for this kind of work, was placed on top and the mercury poured into it until it was 248 ■J MAKVIX TAKING AX OBSERVATION IX A SNOW SHELTER GOOD BY TO MARVIN 249 even full, when it was covered with the glass horizon roof. Marvin, then lying full length upon his face, with his head to the south and both elbows resting upon the snow, was able to hold the sextant steady enough to get his contact of the sun's limb in the very narrow strip of the artificial horizon which was available. A pencil and open note-book under the right hand offered the means of noting the altitudes as they were obtained. The result of Marvin's observations gave our posi- tion as approximately 85° 48' north latitude, figuring the correction for refraction only to a temperature of minus 10 F., the lowest temperature for which we had tables. It was from this point that, reckoning twenty-five miles for our last two marches, we calcu- lated the position of Camp 19, where Borup turned back, as being 85° 23', as against our respective dead reckoning estimates of 85° 20', 85° 25', and 85° 30'. This observation showed that we had thus far averaged eleven and a half minutes of latitude made good for each actual march. Included in these marches had been four short ones resulting from causes the recur- rence of which I believed I could prevent in future. I was confident that if we were not interrupted by open water, against which no calculations and no power of man can prevail, we could steadily increase this aver- age from this time on. The next march was made in a temperature of minus thirty and a misty atmosphere which was evidently caused by open water in the neighborhood. About five miles from camp we just succeeded by the liveliest work in getting four of our five sledges across an open- 250 THENORTHPOLE ing lead. Getting the last sledge over caused a delay of a few hours, as we had to cut an ice raft with pick- axes to ferry the sledge, dogs, and Eskimo driver across. This impromptu ferry-boat was cut on our side and was moved across the lead by means of two coils of rope fastened together and stretching from side to side. When the cake was ready, two of my Eski- mos got on it, we threw the line across to the Eskimo on the other side, the Eskimos on the ice raft took hold of the rope, the Eskimos on either shore held the ends, and the raft was pulled over. Then the dogs and sledge and the three Eskimos took their place on the ice cake, and we hauled them over to our side. While we were engaged in this business we saw a seal disporting himself in the open water of the lead. At the end of the next march, which was about fifteen miles, and which put us across the 86th parallel, we reached Bartlett's next camp, where we found Hen- son and his party in their igloo. I got them out and under way at once, sending by one of them a brief note of encouragement to Bartlett, telling him that his last camp was beyond 86°, that he would probably sleep that night beyond the Norwegian record, and urging him to speed us up for all he was worth. In this march there was some pretty heavy going. Part of the way was over small old floes, which had been broken up by many seasons of unceasing conflict with the winds and tides. Enclosing these more or less level floes were heavy pressure ridges over which we and the dogs were obliged to climb. Often the driver of a heavily loaded sledge would be forced to lift it by main strength over some obstruction. Those GOOD BY TO MARVIN 251 who have pictured us sitting comfortably on our sledges, riding over hundreds of miles of ice smooth as a skating pond, should have seen us lifting and tug- ging at our five-hundred-pound sledges, adding our own strength to that of our dogs. The day was hazy, and the air was full of frost, which, clinging to our eyelashes, almost cemented them together. Sometimes, in opening my mouth to shout an order to the Eskimos, a sudden twinge would cut short my words — my mustache having frozen to my stubble beard. This fifteen mile march put us beyond the Nor- wegian record (86° 13' 6"; see Nansen's "Farthest North," Vol. 2, page 170) and fifteen days ahead of that record. My leading sledge found both Bartlett and Henson in camp; but they were off again, pioneer- ing the trail, before I, bringing up the rear as usual, came in. Egingwah's sledge had been damaged during this march, and as our loads could now be carried on four sledges, owing to what we had eaten along the way, we broke up Marvin's damaged sledge and used the material in it for repairing the other four. As Marvin and two Eskimos were to turn back from the next camp, I left here his supplies for the return and part of his equipment, in order to save unnecessary transportation out and back. The time employed in mending the sledges and shifting the loads cut into our hours of sleep, and after a short rest of three hours we were again under way, with four sledges and teams of ten dogs each. The next march was a good one. Bartlett had responded like a thoroughbred to my urging. Fav- 252 THENORTHPOLE ored by good going, he reeled off full twenty miles, notwithstanding a snow-storm part of the time, which made it hard to see. The temperature, which varied from 16° to 30° below zero, indicated that there was more or less open water to the west, from which direc- tion the wind came. During this march we crossed several leads covered with young ice, treacherous under the recently fallen snow. Along the course of one of these leads we saw the fresh track of a polar bear going west, over two hundred miles from land. At half-past ten on the morning of the 25th I came upon Bartlett and Henson with their men, all in camp, in accordance with my instructions to wait for me at the end of their fifth march. I turned them all out, and every one jumped in to repair the sledges, redis- tribute the loads, weed out the least efficient dogs, and rearrange the Eskimos in the remaining divisions. While this work was going on, Marvin, favored by clear weather, took another meridian observation for latitude and obtained 86° 38'. This placed us, as I expected, beyond the Italian record, and showed that in our last three marches we had covered a distance of fifty minutes of latitude, an average of sixteen and two-thirds miles per march. We were thirty-two days ahead of the Italian record in time. I was doubly glad of the result of the observations, not only for the sake of Marvin, whose services had been invaluable and who deserved the privilege of claiming a higher northing than Nansen and Abruzzi, but also for the honor of Cornell University, to the faculty of which he belonged, and two of whose alumni and patrons had been generous contributors to the GOOD BY TO MARVIN 253 Peary Arctic Club. I had hoped that Marvin would be able to make a sounding at his farthest north, but there was no young ice near the camp through which a hole could be made. About four o'clock in the afternoon Bartlett, with Ooqueah and Karko, two sledges, and eighteen dogs, got away for the advance. Bartlett started off with the determination to bag the 88th parallel in the next five marches (after which he was to turn back), and I sincerely hoped that he would be able to reel off the miles to that point, as he certainly deserved such a record. Later I learned that he had intended to cover twenty-five or thirty miles in his first march, which he would have done had conditions not been against him. Though tired with the long march and the day's work in camp, after a short sleep the night before, I was not able to turn in for several hours after Bart- lett got away. There were numerous details which required personal attention. There were letters to write and orders for Marvin to take back, together with his instructions for his projected trip to Cape Jesup. The next morning, Friday, March 26, 1 rapped the whole party up at five o'clock, after a good sleep all round. As soon as we had eaten our usual breakfast of pemmican, biscuit, and tea, Henson, Ootah, and Keshingwah, with three sledges and twenty-five dogs, got away on Bartlett's trail. Marvin, with Kudlooktoo and "Harrigan," one sledge, and seventeen dogs, started south at half -past nine in the morning. 254 THENORTHPOLE No shadow of apprehension for the future hung over that parting. It was a clear, crisp morning, the sunlight glittered on the ice and snow, the dogs were alert and active after their long sleep, the air blew cold and fresh from the polar void, and Marvin himself, though reluctant to turn back, was filled with exulta- tion that he had carried the Cornell colors to a point beyond the farthest north of Nansen and Abruzzi, and that, with the exception of Bartlett and myself, he alone of all white men had entered that exclusive region which stretches beyond 86° 34' north latitude. I shall always be glad that Marvin marched with me during those last few days. As we tramped along together we had discussed the plans for his trip to Cape Jesup, and his line of soundings from there northward; and as he turned back to the land his mind was glowing with hope for the future — the future which he was destined never to know. My last words to him were: "Be careful of the leads, my boy!" So we shook hands and parted in that desolate white waste, and Marvin set his face southward toward his death, and I turned again northward toward the Pole. CHAPTER XXVIII WE BREAK ALL RECORDS BY an odd coincidence, soon after Marvin left us on his fatal journey from 86° 38' back to land, the sun was obscured and a dull, lead-colored haze spread over all the sky. This grayness, in con- trast to the dead white surface of the ice and snow and the strangely diffused quality of the light, gave an indescribable effect. It was a shadowless light and one in which it was impossible to see for any considerable distance. That shadowless light is not unusual on the ice- fields of the polar sea; but this was the first occasion on which we had encountered it since leaving the land. One looking for the most perfect illustration of the arctic inferno would find it in that gray light. A more ghastly atmosphere could not have been imag- ined even by Dante himself — sky and ice seeming utterly wan and unreal. Notwithstanding the fact that I had now passed the "farthest north'* of all my predecessors and was approaching my own best record, with my eight com- panions, sixty dogs, and seven fully loaded sledges in far better condition than I had even dared to hope, the strange and melancholy light in which we traveled on this day of parting from Marvin gave me an inde- scribably uneasy feeling. Man in his egotism, from 255 256 THE NORTH POLE the most primitive ages to our own, has always imagined a sympathetic relationship between nature and the events and feelings of human life. So — in the light of later events — admitting that I felt a peculiar awe in contemplating the ghastly grayness of that day, I am expressing only an ineradicable instinct of the race to which I belong. The first three-quarters of the march after Marvin turned back, on March 26, the trail was fortunately in a straight line, over large level snow-covered floes of varying height, surrounded by medium-rough old rafters of ice; and the last quarter was almost entirely over young ice averaging about one foot thick, broken and raftered, presenting a rugged and trying surface to travel over in the uncertain light. Without Bart- lett's trail to follow, the march would have been even more difficult. Near the end of the day we were again deflected to the west some distance by an open lead. Whenever the temperature rose as high as minus 15°, where it had stood at the beginning of the day, we were sure of encountering open water. But just before we reached the camp of Bartlett's pioneer division, the gray haze in which we had traveled all day lifted, and the sun came out clear and brilliant. The temperature had also dropped to minus 20°. Bartlett was just starting out again when I arrived, and we agreed that we had made a good fifteen miles in the last march. The next day, March 27, was a brilliant dazzling day of arctic sunshine, the sky a glittering blue, and the ice a glittering white, which, but for the smoked goggles worn by every member of the party, would certainly WE BREAK ALL RECORDS 257 have given some of us an attack of snow blindness. From the time when the reappearing sun of the arctic spring got well above the horizon, these goggles had been worn continuously. The temperature during this march dropped from minus 30° to minus 40°, there was a biting northeasterly- breeze, and the dogs traveled forward in their own white cloud of steam. On the polar ice we gladly hail the extreme cold, as higher temperatures and light snow always mean open water, danger, and delay. Of course, such minor incidents as frosted and bleeding cheeks and noses we reckon as part of the great game. Frosted heels and toes are far more serious, because they lessen a man's ability to travel, and traveling is what we are there for. Mere pain and inconvenience are inevitable, but, on the whole, inconsiderable. This march was by far the hardest for some days. At first there was a continuation of the broken and raftered ice, sharp and jagged, that at times seemed almost to cut through our sealskin kamiks and hare- skin stockings, to pierce our feet. Then we struck heavy rubble ice covered with deep snow, through which we had literally to plow our way, lifting and steadying the sledges until our muscles ached. During the day we saw the tracks of two foxes in this remote and icy wilderness, nearly two hundred and forty nautical miles beyond the northern coast of Grant Land. Finally we came upon Bartlett's camp in a maze of small pieces of very heavy old floes raftered in every direction. He had been in his igloo but a short time, and his men and dogs were tired out and temporarily 258 THENORTHPOLE discouraged by the heart-racking work of making a road. I told him to take a good long sleep before getting under way again; and while my men were building the igloos, I lightened the loads of Bartlett's sledges about one hundred pounds, to put them in better trim for pioneering in this rough going. The added weight would be less burdensome on our own sledges than on his. Notwithstanding the crazy road over which we had traveled, this march netted us twelve good miles toward the goal. We were now across the 87th parallel and into the region of perpetual daylight, as the sun had not set during the last march. The knowledge that we had crossed the 87th parallel with men and dogs in good condit on, and plenty of supplies upon the sledges, sent me to sleep that night with a light heart. Only about six miles beyond this point, at 87° 6', I had been obliged to turn back nearly three years before, with exhausted dogs, depleted supplies, and a heavy and discouraged heart. It seemed to me then that the story of my life was told and that the word failure was stamped across it. Now, three years older, with three more years of the inevitable wear and tear of this inexorable game behind me, I stood again beyond the 87th parallel still reaching forward to that goal which had beckoned to me for so many years. Even now, on reaching my highest record with every prospect good, I dared not build too much on the chances of the white and treach- erous ice which stretched one hundred and eighty nautical miles northward between me and the end. I WE BREAK ALL RECORDS 259 had believed for years that this thing could be done and that it was my destiny to do it, but I always reminded myself that many a man had felt thus about some dearly wished achievement, only to fail in the end. When I awoke the following day, March 28, the sky was brilliantly clear; but ahead of us there was a thick, smoky, ominous haze drifting low over the ice, and a bitter northeast wind, which, in the orthography of the Arctic, plainly spelled open water. Did this mean failure again? No man could say. Bartlett had, of course, left camp and taken to the trail again long before I and the men of my division were awake. This was in accordance with my general plan, previ- ously outlined, that the pioneer division should be trav- eling while the main division slept, and vice versa, so that the two divisions might be in communication every day. After traveling at a good rate for six hours along Bartlett's trail, we came upon his camp beside a wide lead, with a dense, black, watery sky to the north- west, north, and northeast, and beneath it the smoky fog which we had been facing all day long. In order not to disturb Bartlett, we camped a hundred yards distant, put up our igloos as quietly as possible, and turned in, after our usual supper of pemmican, biscuit, and tea. We had made some twelve miles over much better going than that of the last few marches and on a nearly direct line over large floes and young ice. I was just dropping off to sleep when I heard the ice creaking and groaning close by the igloo, but as the commotion was not excessive, nor of long duration, 260 THE NORTH POLE I attributed it to the pressure from the closing of the lead which was just ahead of us; and after satisfying myself that my mittens were where I could get them instantly, in an emergency, I rolled over on my bed of deerskins and settled myself to sleep. I was just drowsing again when I heard some one yelling excitedly outside. Leaping to my feet and looking through the peep- hole of our igloo, I was startled to see a broad lead of black water between our two igloos and Bartlett's, the nearer edge of water being close to our entrance; and on the opposite side of the lead stood one of Bartlett's men yelling and gesticulating with all the abandon of an excited and thoroughly frightened Eskimo. Awakening my men, I kicked our snow door into fragments and was outside in a moment. The break in the ice had occurred within a foot of the fastening of one of my dog teams, the team escaping by just those few inches from being dragged into the water. Another team had just escaped being buried under a pressure ridge, the movement of the ice having provi- dentially stopped after burying the bight which held their traces to the ice. Bartlett's igloo was moving east on the ice raft which had broken off, and beyond it, as far as the belching fog from the lead would let us see, there was nothing but black water. It looked as if the ice raft which carried Bartlett's division would impinge against our side a little farther on, and I shouted to his men to break camp and hitch up their dogs in a hurry, in readiness to rush across to us should the opportunity present itself. WE BREAK ALL RECORDS 261 Then I turned to consider our own position. Our two igloos, Henson's and mine, were on a small piece of old floe, separated by a crack and a low pressure ridge, a few yards away, from a large floe lying to the west of us. It was clear that it would take very little strain or pressure to detach us and set us afloat also like Bartlett's division. I routed Henson and his men out of their igloo, gave orders to everybody to pack and hitch up imme- diately, and, while this was being done, leveled a path across the crack to the big floe at the west of us. This was done with a pickax, leveling the ice down into the crack, so as to make a continuous surface over which the sledges could pass. As soon as the loads were across and we were safe on the floe, we all went to the edge of the lead and stood ready to assist Bart- lett's men in rushing their sledges across the moment their ice raft should touch our side. Slowly the raft drifted nearer and nearer, until the side of it crunched against the floe. The two edges being fairly even, the raft lay alongside us as a boat lies against a wharf, and we had no trouble in getting Bartlett's men and sledges across and onto the floe with us. Though there is always a possibility that a lead may open directly across a floe as large as this one, we could not waste our sleeping hours in sitting up to watch for it. Our former igloos being lost to us, there was nothing to do but to build another set and turn in immediately. It goes without saying that this extra work was not particularly agreeable. That night we slept with our mittens on, ready at a moment's notice THE NORTH POLE for anything that might happen. Had a new lead formed directly across the sleeping platform of our igloo, precipitating us into the icy water, we should not have been surprised after the first shock of the cold bath, but should have clambered out, scraping the water off our fur garments, and made ready for the next move on the part of our treacherous antagonist — the ice. Notwithstanding the extra fatigue and the pre- carious position of our camp, this last march had put us well beyond my record of three years before, prob- ably 87° 12', so that I went to sleep with the satisfac- tion of having at last beaten my own record, no matter what the morrow might bring forth. The following day, March 29, was not a happy one for us. Though we were all tired enough to rest, we did not enjoy picnicking beside this arctic Phlegethon, which, hour after hour, to the north, northeast, and northwest, seemed to belch black smoke like a prairie fire. So dense was this cloud caused by the condensa- tion of the vapor and the reflection in it of the black water below that we could not see the other shore of the lead — if, indeed, it had a northern shore. As far as the evidence of our senses went, we might be encamped on the edge of that open polar sea which myth-makers have imagined as forever barring the way of man to the northern end of the earth's axis. It was heart-breaking, but there was nothing to do but wait. After breakfast we overhauled the sledges and made a few repairs, dried out some of our garments over the little oil lamps which we carried for that pur- pose, and Bartlett made a sounding of 1,260 fathoms, but found no bottom. He did not let all the line go out, WE BREAK ALL RECORDS 263 fearing there might be a defect in the wire which would lose us more of it, as we were desirous of keeping all that we had for a sounding at our "farthest north," which we hoped would be at the Pole itself. I had only one sounding lead now left, and I would not let Bartlett risk it at this point, but had him use a pair of sledge shoes (brought along for this very purpose from the last broken up sledge) to carry the line down. When our watches told us that it was bedtime — for we were now in the period of perpetual sunlight — we again turned into the igloos which had been hur- riedly built after our exciting experience the night before. A low murmur as of distant surf was issuing from the blackness ahead of us, and steadily growing in volume. To the inexperienced it might have seemed an ominous sound, but to us it was a cheering thing because we knew it meant the narrowing, and perhaps the closing, of the stretch of open water that barred our way. So we slept happily in our frosty huts that "night." CHAPTER XXIX BARTLETT REACHES 87° 47' OUR hopes were soon realized, for at one o'clock in the morning, March 30, when I awoke and looked at my watch, the murmur from the closing lead had increased to a hoarse roar, punc- tuated with groans and with reports like those of rifles, dying away to the east and west like the sounds from a mighty firing line. Looking through the peephole, I saw that the black curtain had thinned so that I could see through it to another similar, though blacker, curtain behind, indicating still another lead further on. At eight o'clock in the morning the temperature was down to minus 30°, with a bitter northwest breeze. The grinding and groaning of the ice had ceased, and the smoke and haze had disappeared, as is usual when a lead closes up or freezes over. We rushed across before the ice should open again. All this day we traveled together, Bartlett's division, Henson's, and mine, constantly crossing narrow lanes of young ice, which had only recently been open water. Dur- ing this march we had to cross a lake of young ice some six or seven miles across — so thin that the ice buckled under us as we rushed on at full speed for the other side. We did our best to make up for the previous day's delay, and when we finally camped on a heavy old floe we had made a good twenty miles. 264 o ~ cc r CAMP AT 8.5° -48' NORTH, MARCH L2l2, 1909 A MOMENTARY HALT IN THE LEE OF A BIG HUMMOCK NORTH OF 88C BARTLETT REACHES 87° 47' 265 The entire region through which we had come during the last four marches was full of unpleasant possibilities for the future. Only too well we knew that violent winds for even a few hours would set the ice all abroad in every direction. Crossing such a zone on a journey north is only half the problem, for there is always the return to be figured on. Though the motto of the Arctic must be, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," we ardently hoped there might not be violent winds until we were south of this zone again on the return. The next march was to be Bartlett's last, and he let himself out to do his best. The going was fairly good, but the weather was thick. There was a strong northerly wind blowing full in our faces, bitter and insistent, and the temperature was in the minus thir- ties. But this northerly wind, though hard to struggle against, was better than an easterly or westerly one, either of which would have set us adrift in open water, while, as it was, the wind was closing up every lead behind us and thus making things easier for Bartlett's supporting party on its return. True, the wind pressure was forcing to the south the ice over which we traveled, and thus losing us miles of distance; but the advantage of frozen leads was more than compensa- tion for this loss. So good was Bartlett's pace during the last half of the march that if I stopped an instant for any purpose I had to jump on a sledge or run, to catch up, and during the last few miles I walked beside Bartlett in advance. He was very sober and anxious to go further; but the program was for him to go back 266 THE NORTH POLE from here in command of the fourth supporting party, and we did not have supplies enough for an increase in the main party. The food which he and his two Eskimos and dog teams would have consumed between this point and the Pole, on the upward and return journeys, might mean that we would all starve before we could reach the land again. Had it been clear we should undoubtedly have cov- ered twenty -five miles in this march; but it is difficult to break a trail in thick weather as rapidly as in clear, and this day netted us only twenty miles. We knew that if we were not on or close to the 88th parallel at the end of this march, it would be because the north- ern winds of the past two days had set the ice south, crushing up the young ice in the leads between us and the land. The sun came out just as we were preparing to camp, and it looked as if we should have clear weather the next day for Bartlett's meridian observations at his "farthest north." When our igloos were built, I told the two Eskimos, Keshingwah and Karko, that they were to go back with the captain the next day; so they could get their clothes as dry as possible, as they probably would not have time to dry them on the forced march home. Bartlett was to return with these two Eskimos, one sledge, and eighteen dogs. After about four hours' sleep, I turned everyone out at five o'clock in the morning. The wind had blown violently from the north all night, and still continued. After breakfast Bartlett started to walk five or BARTLETT REACHES 8 7° 4 V 267 six miles to the north in order to make sure of reaching the 88th parallel. On his return he was to take a merid- ian observation to determine our position. While he was gone I culled the best dogs from his teams, replacing them with the poorer dogs from the teams of the main party. The dogs were on the whole in very good condition, far better than on any of my previous expeditions. I had been throwing the brunt of the dragging on the poorest dogs, those that I judged were going to fail, so as to keep the best dogs fresh for the final spurt. My theory was to work the supporting parties to the limit, in order to keep the main party fresh; and those men who I expected from the beginning would form the main party at the last had things made as easy as possible for them all the way up. Ootah, Hen- son and Egingwah were in this group. Whenever I could do so I had eased their loads for them, giving them the best dogs, and keeping the poorest dogs with the teams of those Eskimos who I knew were going back. It was a part of the deliberate plan to work the support- ing parties as hard as possible, in order to keep the main party fresh up to the farthest possible point. From the beginning there were certain Eskimos who, I knew, barring some unforeseen accident, would go to the Pole with me. There were others who were assigned not to go anywhere near there, and others who were available for either course. If any accidents occurred to those men whom I had originally chosen, I planned to fill their places with the next best ones who were all willing to go. On Bartlett's return the Eskimos built the usual 268 THE NORTH POLE wind shelter already described, and Bartlett took a latitude observation, getting 87° 46' 49". Bartlett was naturally much disappointed to find that even with his five-mile northward march of the morning he was still short of the 88th parallel. Our latitude was the direct result of the northerly wind of the last two days, which had crowded the ice southward as we traveled over it northward. We had traveled fully twelve miles more than his obser- vation showed in the last five marches, but had lost them by the crushing up of the young ice in our rear and the closing of the leads. Bartlett took the observations here, as had Marvin five camps back partly to save my eyes and partly to have independent observations by different members of the expedition. When the calculations were com- pleted, two copies were made, one for Bartlett and one for me, and he got ready to start south on the back trail in command of my fourth supporting party, with his two Eskimos, one sledge, and eighteen dogs. I felt a keen regret as I saw the captain's broad shoulders grow smaUer in the distance and finally dis- appear behind the ice hummocks of the white and glittering expanse toward the south. But it was no time for reverie, and I turned abruptly away and gave my attention to the work which was before me. I had no anxiety about Bartlett. I knew that I should see him again at the ship. My work was still ahead, not in the rear. Bartlett had been invaluable to me, and circumstances had thrust upon him the brunt of the pioneering instead of its being divided among several, as I had originally planned. BARTLETT REACHES 87° 47' 269 Though he was naturally disappointed at not having reached the 88th parallel, he had every reason to be proud, not only of his work in general, but that he had surpassed the Italian record by a degree and a quarter. I had given him the post of honor in command of my last supporting party for three reasons: first, because of his magnificent handling of the Roosevelt; second, because he had cheerfully and gladly stood between me and every possible minor annoyance from the start of the expedition to that day; third, because it seemed to me right that, in view of the noble work of Great Britain in arctic exploration, a British subject should, next to an American, be able to say that he had stood nearest the North Pole. With the departure of Bartlett, the main party now consisted of my own division and Henson's. My men were Egingwah and Seegloo; Henson's men were Ootah and Ooqueah. We had five sledges and forty dogs, the pick of one hundred and forty with which we had left the ship. With these we were ready now for the final lap of the journey. We were now one hundred and thirty-three nauti- cal miles from the Pole. Pacing back and forth in the lee of the pressure ridge near which our igloos were built, I made out my program. Every nerve must be strained to make five marches of at least twenty-five miles each, crowding these marches in such a way as to bring us to the end of the fifth march by noon, to permit an immediate latitude observation. Weather and leads permitting, I be- lieved that I could do this. From the improving character of the ice, and in view of the recent northerly 270 THENORTHPOLE winds, I hoped that I should have no serious trouble with the going. If for any reason I fell short of these proposed dis- tances, I had two methods in reserve for making up the deficit. One was to double the last march — that is, make a good march, have tea and a hearty lunch, rest the dogs a little, and then go on again, without sleep. The other was, at the conclusion of my fifth march, to push on with one light sledge, a double team of dogs, and one or two of the party, leaving the rest in camp. Even should the going be worse than was then anticipated, eight marches like the three from 85° 48' to 86° 38', or six similar to our last one, would do the trick. Underlying all these calculations was the ever- present knowledge that a twenty -fours' gale would open leads of water which might be impassable, and that all these plans would be negatived. As I paced to and fro, making out my plans, I remembered that three years ago that day we had crossed the "big lead" on our way north, April 1, 1906. A comparison of conditions now and then filled me with hope for the future. This was the time for which I had reserved all my energies, the time for which I had worked for twenty- two years, for which I had lived the simple life and trained myself as for a race. In spite of my years, I felt fit for the demands of the coming days and was eager to be on the trail. As for my party, my equip- ment, and my supplies, they were perfect beyond my most sanguine dreams of earlier years. My party might be regarded as an ideal which had now come to X \ o * v~j \^Ho 7 £l ^ ^ p \T ^__V~^JVi FACSIMILE OF OBSERVATIONS AT CAMP MORRIS JESUP, APRIL 7, 1909 D FACSIMILE OF OBSERVATIONS AT CAMP MORRIS JESUP, APRIL 7, 1909 294 THENORTHPOLE Of course there were some more or less informal ceremonies connected with our arrival at our difficult destination, but they were not of a very elaborate character. We planted five flags at the top of the world. The first one was a silk American flag which Mrs. Peary gave me fifteen years ago. That flag has done more traveling in high latitudes than any other ever made. That depends upon the character of the instruments used, the ability of the observer using them, and the number of observations taken. If there were land at the Pole, and powerful instruments of great precision, such as are used in the world's great observatories, were mounted there on suitable foundations and used by practised observers for repeated observations extending over years, then it would be possible to determine the position of the Pole with great precision. With ordinary 6eld instruments, transit, theodolite, or sextant, an extended series of observations by an expert observer should permit the determination of the Pole within entirely satisfactory limits, but not with the same precision as by the first method. A single observation at sea with sextant and the natural horizon, as usually taken by the master of a ship, is assumed under ordinary satisfactory conditions to give the observer's position within about a mile. In regard to the difficulties of taking observations in the arctic regions, I have found a tendency on the part of experts who, however, have not had practical experience in the arctic regions themselves, to overestimate and exaggerate the difficulties and drawbacks of making these observations due to the cold. My personal experience has been that, to an experienced observer, dressed in furs and taking observations in calm weather, in temperatures not exceeding say 40° below zero Fahrenheit, the difficulties of the work resulting from cold alone are not serious. The amount and character of errors due to the effect of cold upon the instrument might perhaps be a subject for discussion, and for distinct differences of opinion. My personal experience has been that my most serious trouble was with the eyes. To eyes which have been subjected to brilliant and unremitting daylight for days and weeks, and to the strain of continually setting a course with the compass, and traveling towards a fixed point in such light, the taking of a series of observations is usually a nightmare; and the strain of focusing, of getting precise contact of the sun's images, and of reading the vernier, all in the blinding light of which only those who have taken observations in bright sunlight on an un- broken snow expanse in the arctic regions can form any conception, usually leaves the eyes bloodshot and smarting for hours afterwards. MEMBERS OF THE PARTY CHEERING THE STARS AND STRIPES AT THE POLE, APRIL 7, 1909 From Left to Right; Ooqueah, Ootah, Henson, Egingwah and Seegloo RETURNING TO CAMP WITH THE FLAGS, APRIL 7, 1909 S =3 WE REACH THE POLE 295 I carried it wrapped about my body on every one of my expeditions northward after it came into my possession, and I left a fragment of it at each of my successive "farthest norths": Cape Morris K. Jesup, the northernmost point of land in the known world; Cape Thomas Hubbard, the northernmost known point of Jesup Land, west of Grant Land; Cape Columbia, the northernmost point of North American lands; and my farthest north in 1906, latitude 87° 6' in the ice of the polar sea. By the time it actually reached the Pole, therefore, it was somewhat worn and discolored. A broad diagonal section of this ensign would now mark the farthest goal of earth — the place where I and my dusky companions stood. It was also considered appropriate to raise the colors of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, in which I was initiated a member while an undergraduate The continued series of observations in the vicinity of the Pole, noted above, left me with eyes that were, for two or three days, useless for anything requiring careful vision, and had it been necessary for me to set a course during the first two or three days of our return I should have found it extremely trying. Snow goggles, as worn by us continually during the march, while helping, do not entirely relieve the eyes from strain, and during a series of observations the eyes become extremely tired and at times uncertain. Various authorities will give different estimates of the probable error in obser- vations taken at the Pole. I am personally inclined to think that an allowance of five miles is an equitable one. No one, except those entirely ignorant of such matters, has imagined for a moment that I was able to determine with my instruments the precise position of the Pole, but after having determined its position approximately, then setting an arbitrary allowance of about ten miles for possible errors of the instruments and myself as observer, and then crossing and recrossing that ten mile area in various directions, no one except the most ignorant will have any doubt but what, at some time, I had passed close to the precise point, and had, perhaps, actually passed over it. 296 THENORTHPOLE student at Bowdoin College, the "World's Ensign of Liberty and Peace," with its red, white, and blue in a field of white, the Navy League flag, and the Red Cross flag. After I had planted the American flag in the ice, I told Henson to time the Eskimos for three rousing cheers, which they gave with the greatest enthusiasm. Thereupon, I shook hands with each member of the party — surely a sufficiently unceremonious affair to meet with the approval of the most democratic. The Eskimos were childishly delighted with our success. While, of course, they did not realize its importance fully, or its world-wide significance, they did understand that it meant the final achievement of a task upon which they had seen me engaged for many years. Then, in a space between the ice blocks of a pres- sure ridge, I deposited a glass bottle containing a diagonal strip of my flag and records of which the following is a copy: 90 N. Lat., North Pole, April 6, 1909. Arrived here to-day, 27 marches from C. Columbia. I have with me 5 men, Matthew Henson, colored, Ootah, Egingwah, Seegloo, and Ookeah, Eskimos; 5 sledges and 38 dogs. My ship, the S. S. Roosevelt, is in winter quarters at C. Sheridan, 90 miles east of Columbia. The expedition under my command which has succeeded in reaching the Pole is under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club of New York City, and has been fitted out and sent north by the members and WE REACH THE POLE 297 friends of the club for the purpose of securing this geographical prize, if possible, for the honor and prestige of the United States of America. The officers of the club are Thomas H. Hubbard, of New York, President; Zenas Crane, of Mass., Vice- president; Herbert L. Bridgman, of New York, Secre- tary and Treasurer. I start back for Cape Columbia to-morrow. Robert E. Peary, United States Navy. 90 N. Lat., North Pole, April 6, 1909. I have to-day hoisted the national ensign of the United States of America at this place, which my observations indicate to be the North Polar axis of the earth, and have formally taken possession of the entire region, and adjacent, for and in the name of the President of the United States of America. I leave this record and United States flag in pos- session. Robert E. Peart, United States Navy. If it were possible for a man to arrive at 90° north latitude without being utterly exhausted, body and brain, he would doubtless enjoy a series of unique sensations and reflections. But the attainment of the Pole was the culmination of days and weeks of forced marches, physical discomfort, insufficient sleep, and racking anxiety. It is a wise provision of nature that the human consciousness can grasp only such 298 THENORTHPOLE degree of intense feeling as the brain can endure, and the grim guardians of earth's remotest spot will accept no man as guest until he has been tried and tested by the severest ordeal. Perhaps it ought not to have been so, but when I knew for a certainty that we had reached the goal, there was not a thing in the world I wanted but sleep. But after I had a few hours of it, there succeeded a condition of mental exaltation which made further rest impossible. For more than a score of years that point on the earth's surface had been the ob- ject of my every effort. To its attainment my whole being, physical, mental, and moral, had been dedicated. Many times my own life and the lives of those with me had been risked. My own material and forces and those of my friends had been devoted to this object. This journey was my eighth into the arctic wilderness. In that wilderness I had spent nearly twelve years out of the twenty-three between my thirtieth and my fifty -third year, and the intervening time spent in civilized communities during that period had been mainly occupied with preparations for returning to the wilderness. The determination to reach the Pole had become so much a part of my being that, strange as it may seem, I long ago ceased to think of myself save as an instrument for the attainment of that end. To the layman this may seem strange, but an inventor can understand it, or an artist, or anyone who has devoted himself for years upon years to the service of an idea. But though my mind was busy at intervals during those thirty hours spent at the Pole with the exhilarating EGIXGWAII SEARCHING THE HORIZON FOR LAND PEARY SEARCHING THE HORIZON" FOR LAND From Top of Pressure Ri>lge Rack of Igloos a* (amp Jesup LOOKING TOWARD CAPE CHELYUSKIN LOOKING TOWARD SPITSBERGEN LOOKING TOWARD CAPE COLUMBIA LOOKING TOWAHI) BERING STRAIT (The Four Directions from the Pole) WE REACH THE POLE 299 thought that my dream had come true, there was one recollection of other times that, now and then, intruded itself with startling distinctness. It was the recollection of a day three years before, April 21, 1906, when after making a fight with ice, open water, and storms, the expedition which I commanded had been forced to turn back from 87° 6' north latitude because our supply of food would carry us no further. And the contrast between the terrible depression of that day and the exaltation of the present moment was not the least pleasant feature of our brief stay at the Pole. During the dark moments of that return journey in 1906, I had told myself that I was only one in a long list of arctic explorers, dating back through the centuries, all the way from Henry Hudson to the Duke of the Abruzzi, and including Franklin, Kane, and Melville — a long list of valiant men who had striven and failed. I told myself that I had only succeeded, at the price of the best years of my life, in adding a few links to the chain that led from the parallels of civilization towards the polar center, but that, after all, at the end the only word I had to write was failure. But now, while quartering the ice in various direc- tions from our camp, I tried to realize that, after twenty-three years of struggles and discouragement, I had at last succeeded in placing the flag of my country at the goal of the world's desire. It is not easy to write about such a thing, but I knew that we were going back to civilization with the last of the great adventure stories — a story the world had been waiting to hear for nearly four hundred years, a story which was to be told at last under the folds of 300 THENORTHPOLE the Stars and Stripes, the flag that during a lonely and isolated life had come to be for me the symbol of home and everything I loved — and might never see again. The thirty hours at the Pole, what with my march- ings and countermarchings, together with the obser- vations and records, were pretty well crowded. I found time, however, to write to Mrs. Peary on a United States postal card which I had found on the ship during the winter. It had been my custom at various important stages of the journey northward to write such a note in order that, if anything serious happened to me, these brief communications might ultimately reach her at the hands of survivors. This was the card, which later reached Mrs. Peary at Sydney: — "90 North Latitude, April 7th. "My dear Jo, "I have won out at last. Have been here a day. I start for home and you in an hour. Love to the "kidsies." "Bert." In the afternoon of the 7th, after flying our flags and taking our photographs, we went into our igloos and tried to sleep a little, before starting south again. I could not sleep and my two Eskimos, Seegloo and Egingwah, who occupied the igloo with me, seemed equally restless. They turned from side to side, and when they were quiet I could tell from their uneven breathing that they were not asleep. Though they had not been specially excited the day before when I WE REACH THE POLE 301 told them that we had reached the goal, yet they also seemed to be under the same exhilarating influence which made sleep impossible for me. Finally I rose, and telling my men and the three men in the other igloo, who were equally wakeful, that we would try to make our last camp, some thirty miles to the south, before we slept, I gave orders to hitch up the dogs and be off. It seemed unwise to waste such perfect traveling weather in tossing about on the sleeping platforms of our igloos. Neither Henson nor the Eskimos required any urging to take to the trail again. They were naturally anxious to get back to the land as soon as possible — now that our work was done. And about four o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th of April we turned our backs upon the camp at the North Pole. Though intensely conscious of what I was leaving, I did not wait for any lingering farewell of my life's goal. The event of human beings standing at the hitherto inaccessible summit of the earth was accom- plished, and my work now lay to the south, where four hundred and thirteen nautical miles of ice-floes and possibly open leads still lay between us and the north coast of Grant Land. One backward glance I gave — then turned my face toward the south and toward the future. CHAPTER XXXIII GOOD BY TO THE POLE WE turned our backs upon the Pole at about four o'clock of the afternoon of April 7. Some effort has been made to give an adequate impression of the joy with which that remote spot had been reached, but however much pleasure we experienced upon reaching it, I left it with only that tinge of sadness that sometimes flashes over one at the thought, "This scene my eyes will never see again." Our pleasure at being once more upon the home- ward trail was somewhat lessened by a distinct feeling of anxiety with regard to the task that still lay before us. All the plans for the expedition were formulated quite as much with an eye toward a safe return from the Pole as toward the task of reaching it. The North Pole expedition has some relation to the problem of flying: a good many people have found that, while it was not so very difficult to fly, the difficulties of alighting in safety were more considerable. It will be remembered, doubtless, that the greatest dangers of the expedition of 1905-06 were encountered not upon the upward journey, but in the course of our return from our farthest north over the polar ice, for it was then that we encountered the implacable "Big Lead, "whose perils so nearly encompassed the destruction of the entire party. And it will be further 302 ATTEMPTED SOUNDING. APRIL 7, 1909 < GOOD BY TO THE POLE 303 remembered that even after the "Big Lead" was safely crossed and we had barely managed to stagger ashore upon the inhospitable edge of northernmost Greenland we escaped starvation only by the narrowest possible margin. Memories of this narrow escape were, therefore, in the minds of every member of our little party as we turned our backs upon the North Pole, and I dare say that every one of us wondered whether a similar experience were in store for us. We had found the Pole. Should we return to tell the story? Before we hit the trail I had a brief talk with the men of the party and made them understand that it was essential that we should reach the land before the next spring tides. To this end every nerve must be strained. From now on it was to be a case of "big travel," little sleep, and hustle every minute. My plan was to try to make double marches on the entire return journey; that is to say, to start out, cover one northward march, make tea and eat luncheon, then cover another march, then sleep a few hours, and push on again. As a matter of fact, we did not fall much short of accom- plishing this program. To be accurate, day in and day out we covered five northward marches in three return marches. Every day we gained on the return lessened the chances of the trail being destroyed by high winds shifting the ice. There was one region just above the 87th parallel, a region about fifty-seven miles wide, which gave me a great deal of concern until we had passed it. Twelve hours of strong wind blowing from any quarter excepting the north would have turned that region into an open sea. I breathed 304 THENORTHPOLE a sigh of relief when we left the 87th parallel behind. It will be recalled, perhaps, that though the expedi- tion of 1905-06 started for the Pole from the northern shore of Grant Land, just as did this last expedition, the former expedition returned by a different route, reaching land again on the Greenland coast. This result was caused by the fact that strong winds carried the ice upon which we traveled far to the eastward of our upward course. This time, however, we met with no such misfortune. For the most part we found the trail renewed by our supporting parties easily recog- nizable and in most cases in good condition. Moreover there was an abundance of food both for men and for dogs, and so far as equipment went we were stripped as if for racing. Nor must the stimulating effects of the party's high spirits be forgotten. Everything, in short, was in our favor. We crowded on all speed for the first five miles of our return journey. Then we came to a narrow crack which was filled with recent ice, which furnished a chance to try for a sounding, a thing that had not been feasible at the Pole itself on account of the thickness of the ice. Here, however, we were able to chop through the ice until we struck water. Our sounding apparatus gave us 1500 fathoms of water with no bottom. As the Eskimos were reeling in, the wire parted and both the lead and wire went to the bottom. With the loss of the lead and wire, the reel became useless, and was thrown away, lightening Ooqueah's sledge by eighteen pounds. The first camp, at 89° 25', was reached in good time, and the march would have been a pleasant one for me GOOD BY TO THE POLE 305 but for my eyes burning from the strain of the con- tinued observations of the previous hours. After a few hours' sleep we hurried on again, Eskimos and dogs on the qui vive. At this camp I began the system followed throughout the return march, of feeding the dogs according to the distance covered; that is, double rationing them when we covered two marches. I was able to do this, on account of the reserve supply of food which I had in my dogs themselves, in the event of our being seriously delayed by open leads. At the next camp we made tea and ate our lunch in the igloos, rested the dogs, and then pushed on again. The weather was fine, though there were apparently indications of a coming change. It took all of our will power to reach the next igloos, but we did it, and were asleep almost before we had finished our supper. Without these igloos to look forward to and work for, we should not have made this march. Friday, April 9, was a wild day. All day long the wind blew strong from the north-northeast, in- creasing finally to a gale, while the thermometer hung between 18° and 22° below zero. All the leads that we had passed here on the upward journey were greatly widened and new ones had been formed. We struck one just north of the 88th parallel which was at least a mile wide, but fortunately it was all covered with practicable young ice. It was not a reassuring day. For the last half of this march the ice was raftering all about us and beneath our very feet under the pressure of the howling gale. Fortunately we were traveling 306 THENORTHPOLE nearly before the wind, for it would have been impossible to move and follow a trail with the gale in our faces. As it was, the dogs scudded along before the wind much of the time on the gallop. Under the impact of the storm the ice was evidently crushing southward and bearing us with it. I was strongly reminded of the wild gale in which we regained "storm camp" on our return march in 1906. Luckily there was no lateral movement of the ice, or we should have had serious trouble. When we camped that night, at 87° 47', I wrote in my diary: "From here to the Pole and back has been a glorious sprint with a savage finish. Its results are due to hard work, little sleep, much expe- rience, first class equipment, and good fortune as regards weather and open water." During the night the gale moderated and gradually died away, leaving the air very thick. All hands found the light extremely trying to the eyes. It was almost impossible for us to see the trail. Though the temperature was only 10° below zero, we covered only Bartlett's last march that day. We did not attempt to do more because the dogs were feeling the effects of the recent high speed and it was desired to have them in the best possible condition for the next day, when I expected some trouble with the young ice we were sure to meet. At this spot certain eliminations which we were compelled to make among the dogs left us a total of thirty -five. Sunday, April 11, proved a brilliant day, the sun breaking through the clouds soon after we left camp. The air was nearly calm, the sun seemed almost hot, and its glare was intense. If it had not been for our GOOD BY TO THE POLE 307 smoked goggles we should have suffered from snow- blindness. Despite the expectation of trouble with which we began this march, we were agreeably dis- appointed. On the upward journey, all this region had been covered with young ice, and we thought it reasonable to expect open water here, or at the best that the trail would have been obliterated; but there had not been enough movement of the ice to break the trail. So far there had been no lateral — east and west — movement of the ice. This was the great, for- tunate, natural feature of the home trip, and the principal reason why we had so little trouble. We stopped for lunch at the "lead" igloos, and as we finished our meal the ice opened behind us. We had crossed just in time. Here we noticed some fox tracks that had just been made. The animal was probably disturbed by our approach. These are the most northerly animal tracks ever seen. Inspirited by our good fortune, we pressed on again, completing two marches, and when we camped were very near the 87th parallel. The entry that I made in my diary that night is perhaps worth quoting: "Hope to reach the Marvin return igloo to-morrow. I shall be glad when we get there onto the big ice again. This region here was open water as late as February and early March and is now covered with young ice which is extremely unreliable as a means of return. A few hours of a brisk wind, east, west, or south, would make this entire region open water for from fifty to sixty miles north and south and an unknown extent east and west. Only calm weather or a northerly wind keeps it practicable." 308 THENORTHPOLE A double march brought us to Camp Abruzzi, 86° 38', named in honor of the farthest north of the Duke of the Abruzzi. The trail was faulted in several places, but we picked it up each time without much difficulty. The following day was a bitterly disagreeable one. On this march we had in our faces a fresh southwest wind that, ever and again, spat snow that stung like needles and searched every opening in our clothing. But we were so delighted that we were across the young ice that these things seemed like trifles. The end of this march was at "Camp Nansen," named in honor of Nansen's "Farthest North." This return journey was apparently destined to be full of contrasts, for the next day was one of brilliant sunlight and perfect calm. Despite the good weather the dogs seemed almost lifeless. It was impossible to get them to move faster than a walk, light though the loads were. Henson and the Eskimos also appeared to be a bit stale, so that it seemed wise to make a single march here instead of the usual double march. After a good sleep we started to put in another double march and then we began to feel the effects of the wind. Even before we broke camp the ice began to crack and groan all about the igloo. Close by the camp a lead opened as we set out, and in order to get across it we were obliged to use an ice-cake ferry. Between there and the next camp, at 85° 48', we found three igloos where Marvin and Bartlett had been delayed by wide leads, now frozen over. My Eskimos identified these igloos by recognizing in their construction the handiwork of men in the parties of Bartlett and Marvin. The Eskimos can nearly PASSING OVER THE BRIDGE GOOD BY TO THE POLE 309 always tell who built an igloo. Though they are all constructed on one general principle, there are always peculiarities of individual workmanship which are readily recognized by these experienced children of the North. During the first march of the day we found the trail badly faulted, the ice breaking up in all direc- tions under the pressure of the wind, and some of the way we were on the run, the dogs jumping from one piece of ice to another. During the second march we saw a recent bear track, probably made by the same animal whose track we had seen on the upward jour- ney. All along here were numerous cracks and narrow leads, but we were able to cross them without any great delay. There was one lead a mile wide which had formed since the upward trip, and the young ice over it was now breaking up. Perhaps we took chances here, perhaps not. One thing was in our favor: our sledges were much lighter than on the upward journey, and we could now "rush" them across thin ice that would not have held them a moment then. In any event we got no thrill or irreg- ularity of the pulse from the incident. It came as a matter of course, a part of the day's work. As we left the camp where we had stopped for lunch, a dense, black, threatening bank of clouds came up from the south and we looked for a gale, but the wind fell and we arrived at the next camp, where Marvin had made a 700-fathom sounding and lost wire and pickaxes, in calm and brilliant sunlight after a march of eighteen hours. We were now approxi- mately one hundred and forty-six miles from land. 310 THE NORTH POLE We were coming down the North Pole hill in fine shape now and another double march, April 16-17, brought us to our eleventh upward camp at 85° 8', one hundred and twenty-one miles from Cape Columbia. On this march we crossed seven leads, which, with the repeated faulting of the trail, lengthened our march once more to eighteen hours. Sunday, April 18, found us still hurrying along over the trail made by Marvin and Bartlett. They had lost the main trail, but this made little difference to us except as to time. We were able to make longer marches when on the main trail because there we camped in the igloos already built on the upward journey instead of having to build fresh ones for ourselves. This was another eigh teen-hour march. It had a calm and warm beginning, but, so far as I was concerned, an extremely uncomfortable finish. During the day my clothes had become damp with perspiration. Moreover, as our long marches and short sleeps had brought us round to the calendar day, we were facing the sun, and this, with the southwest wind, burned my face so badly that it was little short of agonizing. But I con- soled myself with the reflection that we were now less than a hundred miles from land. I tried to forget my stinging flesh in looking at the land clouds which we could see from this camp. There is no mistaking these clouds, which are permanent and formed of the condensation of the moisture from the land in the upper strata of the atmosphere. To-morrow, we knew, we might even be able to see the land itself. Meantime the dogs had again become utterly lifeless. Three of them had played out entirely. Extra rations were fed GOOD BY TO THE POLE 311 to them and we made a longer stop in this camp, partly on their account and partly to bring us around again to "night" marching, with the sun at our backs. During the next march from Sunday to Monday, April 18th to 19th, there was a continuation of the fine weather and we were still coming along on my proposed schedule. Our longer sleep of the night before had heartened both ourselves and the dogs, and with renewed energy we took to the trail again about one o'clock in the afternoon. At a quarter past two we passed Bartlett's igloo on the north side of an enormous lead which had formed since we went up. We were a little over two hours crossing this lead. It was not until eleven that night when we again picked up the main trail, in Henson's first pioneer march. When, traveling well in advance of the sledges I picked it up and signaled to my men that I had found it, they nearly went crazy with delight. The region over which we had just come had been an open sea at the last full moon, and a brisk wind from any direction excepting the north would make it the same again; or the raftering from a north wind would make it a ragged surface of broken plate glass. It may seem strange to the reader that in this monotonous waste of ice we could distinguish between the various sections of our upward marches and recog- nize them on return. But, as I have said, my Eskimos know who built or even who has occupied an igloo, with the same instinct by which migratory birds recognize their old nests of the preceding year; and I have traveled these arctic wastes so long and lived so 312 THENORTHPOLE long with these instinctive children of Nature that my sense of location is almost as keen as their own. At midnight we came upon pieces of a sledge which Egingwah had abandoned on the way up, and at three o'clock in the morning of the 19th we reached the MacMillan-Goodsell return igloos. We had cov- ered Henson's three pioneer marches in fifteen and one-half hours of travel. Another dog played out that day and was shot, leaving me with thirty. At the end of this march we could see the mountains of Grant Land in the far distance to the south, and the sight thrilled us. It was like a vision of the shores of the home land to sea-worn mariners. Again, the next day, we made a double march. Starting late in the afternoon we reached the sixth out- ward camp, "boiled the kettle," and had a light lunch; then plunged on again until early in the morning of the 20th, when we reached the fifth outward camp. So far we had seemed to bear a charm which pro- tected us from all difficulties and dangers. While Bartlett and Marvin and, as I found out later, Borup had been delayed by open leads, at no single lead had we been delayed more than a couple of hours. Some- times the ice had been firm enough to carry us across; sometimes we had made a short detour; sometimes we halted for the lead to close; sometimes we used an ice- cake as an improvised ferry : but whatever the mode of our crossing, we had crossed without serious difficulty. It had seemed as if the guardian genius of the polar waste, having at last been vanquished by man, had accepted defeat and withdrawn from the contest. SOUNDING BREAKING CAMP. PUSHING THE SLEDGES UP TO THE TIKED DOGS LAST CAMP OX THE ICE OX THE RETURN BACK ON THE "GLACIAL FRINGE" (Land Ice of Grant Land Near Cape Columbia, April 23, 1909) GOOD BY TO THE POLE 313 Now, however, we were getting within the baleful sphere of influence of the "Big Lead," and in the fifth igloos from Columbia (the first ones north of the lead) I passed an intensely uncomfortable night, suffering from a variety of disagreeable symptoms which I diagnosed as those of quinsy. On this march we had brought the land up very rapidly so that I had some consolation for my discomfort. In three or four days at the most, barring accident, our feet would again press land. Despite my aching throat and no sleep, I took much comfort from this welcome thought. CHAPTER XXXIV BACK TO LAND AGAIN WE had now reached the neighborhood of the "Big Lead" which had held us in check so many days on the upward journey and which had nearly cost the lives of my entire party in 1906. I anticipated trouble, therefore, in the march of April 20-21, and I was not disappointed. Although the "Big Lead" was frozen over we found that Bartlett on his return had lost the main trail here and did not find it again. For the rest of the ice journey, therefore, we were compelled to follow the single trail made by Bartlett instead of our well beaten outward trail. I could not complain. We had kept the beaten road back to within some fifty miles of the land. For me this was the most uncomfortable march of the entire trip. It was made following a sleepless night in a cold igloo. For all that my clothes were wet with perspiration, my jaw and head throbbed and burned incessantly, though toward the end of the march I began to feel the effects of the quinine I had taken, and not long after we reached the captain's igloo the worst of the symptoms had departed. But it was hard drilling that day, and our troubles were in no way lessened by the fact that the dogs seemed utterly without energy or spirit. 314 BACK TO LAND AGAIN 315 The beautiful weather which had accompanied us for several days still continued on the next day. It was really a surprising stretch of splendid weather. We marched six hours, then stopped for luncheon, and then drilled along for six hours more. Repeatedly we passed fresh tracks of bear and hare, together with numerous fox tracks. Save for these, the march was uneventful, with the exception of two narrow leads which we crossed over thin young ice. All that day the sun was hot and blinding to an almost intolerable degree. It would have been practically impossible to travel with the sun in our faces, so fierce were its rays. Yet all this day the temperature ranged between 18° and 30° below zero. The last day's journey before we reached shore began at 5 p.m. in that same brilliant, clear, calm weather. A short distance from camp we encountered an impracticable lead which the captain's trail crossed. In one fruitless attempt to pass it we got one of our teams in the water. Ultimately the lead swung to the east, and we found the captain's trail, took it up, and worked around the end of the lead. Only a short distance further on we got our first glimpse of the edge of the glacial fringe ahead of us and stopped our march long enough to take some photographs. Before midnight that night the whole party had reached the glacial fringe of Grant Land. We had now left the ice of the polar sea and were practically on terra firma. When the last sledge came to the almost vertical edge of the glacier's fringe I thought my Eskimos had gone crazy. They yelled and called and danced until they fell from utter 316 THENORTH POLE exhaustion. As Ootah sank down on his sledge he remarked in Eskimo: "The devil is asleep or having trouble with his wife or we should never have come back so easily." We stopped long enough for a leisurely luncheon with tea ad libitum and then pressed on until Cape Columbia was reached. It was almost exactly six o'clock on the morning of April 23 when we reached the igloo of "Crane City" at Cape Columbia and the work was done. Here I wrote these words in my diary: "My life work is accomplished. The thing which it was intended from the beginning that I should do, the thing which I believed could be done, and that I could do, I have done. I have got the North Pole out of my system after twenty-three years of effort, hard work, disappointments, hardships, privations, more or less suffering, and some risks. I have won the last great geographical prize, the North Pole, for the credit of the United States. This work is the finish, the cap and climax of nearly four hundred years of effort, loss of life, and expenditure of fortunes by the civilized nations of the world, and it has been accomplished in a way that is thoroughly American. I am content." Our return from the Pole was accomplished in six- teen marches, and the entire journey from land to the Pole and back again occupied fifty-three days, or forty-three marches. It had been, as a result of our experience and perfected clothing and equipment, an amazingly comfortable return as compared with pre- vious ones, but a little difference in the weather would have given us a different story to tell. There was no BACK TO LAND AGAIN 317 one in our party who was not delighted to have passed the treacherous lead and those wide expanses of young thin ice where a gale would have put an open sea between us and the land and rendered our safe return hazardous, to say the least. In all probability no member of that little party will ever forget our sleep at Cape Columbia. We slept gloriously for practically two days, our brief waking intervals being occupied exclusively with eating and with drying our clothes. Then for the ship. Our dogs, like ourselves, had not been hungry when we arrived, but simply lifeless with fatigue. They were different animals now, and the better ones among them stepped out with tightly curled tails and uplifted heads, their iron legs treading the snow with piston-like regularity and their black muzzles every now and then sniffing the welcome scent of the land. We reached Cape Hecla in one march of forty-five miles and the Roosevelt in another of equal length. My heart thrilled as, rounding the point of the cape, I saw the little black ship lying there in its icy berth with sturdy nose pointing straight to the Pole. And I thought of that other time three years before when, dragging our gaunt bodies round Cape Rawson on our way from the Greenland coast, I thought the Roosevelt's slender spars piercing the bril- liant arctic sunlight as fair a sight as ever I had seen. As we approached the ship I saw Bartlett going over the rail. He came out along the ice-foot to meet me, and something in his face told me he had bad news even before he spoke. 318 THE NORTH POLE "Have you heard about poor Marvin?" he asked. "No," I answered. Then he told me that Marvin had been drowned at the "Big Lead," coming back to Cape Columbia. The news staggered me, killing all the joy I had felt at the sight of the ship and her captain. It was indeed a bitter flavor in the cup of our success. It was hard to realize at first that the man who had worked at my side through so many weary months under conditions of peril and privation, to whose efforts and example so much of the success of the expedition had been due, would never stand beside me again. The manner of his death even will never be precisely known. No human eye was upon him when he broke through the treacherous young ice that had but recently closed over a streak of open water. He was the only white man in the supporting party of which he was in command and with which he was returning to the land at the time he met his death. As was customary, on breaking camp he had gone out ahead of the Eskimos, leaving the natives to break camp, harness the dogs, and follow. When he came to the "Big Lead," the recent ice of which was safe and secure at the edges, it is probable that, hurrying on, he did not notice the gradual thinning of the ice toward the center of the lead until it was too late and he was in the water. The Eskimos were too far in the rear to hear his calls for help, and in that ice-cold water the end must have come very quickly. He who had never shrunk from loneliness in the performance of his duty had at last met death alone. Coming along over the trail in his footsteps, the APPROACHING THE PEAKS OF CAPE COLUMBIA OVER THE SURFACE OF THE "GLACIAL FRINGE" CRANE CITY AT CAPE COLUMBIA, OX THE RETURN" EGINGWAH BEFORE STARTING ON THE SLEDGE TRIP EGINGWAH AFTER THE RE- TURN FROM THE TRIP OOTAII HKFOHK STARTING ON OOTAH AFTER T1IK RETURN THE SLEDGE TRIP FROM THE SLEDGE TRIP • Tin- Portraits nt the Left Were Made by Flashlight on the Roosevelt Before the Journey. Those mi the Right Were Taken Immediately After the Return I BACK TO LAND AGAIN 319 Eskimos of his party came to the spot where the broken ice gave them the first hint of the accident. One of the Eskimos said that the back of Marvin's fur jacket was still visible at the top of the water, while the condition of the ice at the edge seemed to indicate that Marvin had made repeated efforts to drag himself from the water, but that the ice was so thin that it had crumbled and broken beneath his weight, plunging him again into the icy water. He must have been dead some time before the Eskimos came up. It was, of course, impossible for them to rescue the body, since there was no way of their getting near it. Of course they knew what had happened to Marvin; but with childish superstition peculiar to their race they camped there for a while on the possibility that he might come back. But after a time, when he did not come back, Kood- looktoo and "Harrigan" became frightened. They realized that Marvin was really drowned and they were in dread of his spirit. So they threw from the sledge everything they could find belonging to him, that the spirit, if it came back that way, might find these personal belongings and not pursue the men. Then they hurried for the land as fast as they could go. Quiet in manner, wiry in build, clear of eye, with an atmosphere of earnestness about him, Ross G. Marvin had been an invaluable member of the expe- dition. Through the long hot weeks preceding the sailing of the Roosevelt, he worked indefatigably look- ing after the assembling and delivery of the count- less essential items of our outfit, until he, Bartlett, 320 THE NORTH POLE and myself were nearly exhausted. On the northern voyage he was always willing and ready, whether for taking an observation on deck or stowing cargo in the hold. When the Eskimos came aboard, his good humor, his quiet directness, and his physical competence gained him at once their friendship and respect. From the very first he was able to manage these odd people with uncommon success. Later, when face to face with the stern problems of life and work in the arctic regions, he met them quietly, uncomplainingly, and with a steady, level persistence that could have but one result, and I soon came to know Ross Marvin as a man who would accom- plish the task assigned to him, whatever it might be. The tidal and meteorological observations of the expedition were his particular charge, while, during the long dark winter night, his mathematical train- ing enabled him to be of great assistance in working out problems of march formation, transportation and supplies, and arrangements of the supporting parties. In the spring sledge campaign of 1906 he commanded a separate division. When the great storm swept the polar sea and scattered my parties hopelessly in a chaos of shattered ice, Marvin's division, like my own farther north, was driven eastward and came down upon the Greenland coast, whence he brought his men safely back to the ship. From this expedition he returned trained in arctic details and thoroughly conversant with the underlying principles of all suc- cessful work in northern regions, so that when he went north with us in 1908, he went as a veteran who could absolutely be depended upon in an emergency. BACK TO LAND AGAIN 321 The bones of Ross G. Marvin lie farther north than those of any other human being. On the northern shore of Grant Land we erected a cairn of stones, and upon its summit we placed a rude tablet inscribed: "In Memory of Ross G. Marvin of Cornell University, Aged 34. Drowned April 10, 1909, forty-five miles north of C. Columbia, returning from 86° 38' N. Lat." This cenotaph looks from that bleak shore northward toward the spot where Marvin met his death. His name heads that glorious roll-call of arctic heroes among whom are Willoughby, Franklin, Sontag, Hall, Lock wood, and others who died in the field, and it must be some consolation to those who grieve for him that his name is inseparably connected with the win- ning of that last great trophy for which, through nearly four centuries, men of every civilized nation have suffered and struggled and died. The Eskimos of whom Marvin was in command at the time he lost his life fortunately overlooked, in throwing Marvin's things upon the ice, a little canvas packet on the upstanders of the sledge containing a few of his notes, among them what is probably the last thing he ever wrote. It is so typical of the man's intelligent devotion to his duty that it is here appended as he wrote it. It will be seen that it was written on the very day that I last saw him alive, that day upon which he turned back to the south from his farthest north. "March 25, 1909. This is to certify that I turned back from this point with the third supporting party, Commander Peary advancing with nine men 322 THENORTHPOLE in the party, seven sledges with the standard loads, and sixty dogs. Men and dogs are in first class con- dition. The captain, with the fourth and last support- ing party, expects to turn back at the end of five more marches. Determined our latitude by observations on March 22, and again to-day, March 25. A copy of the observations and computations is herewith enclosed. Results of observations were as follows: Latitude at noon, March 22, 85° 48' north. Latitude at noon, March 25, 86° 38' north. Distance made good in three marches, fifty minutes of latitude, an average of sixteen and two-thirds nautical miles per march. The weather is fine, going good and improv- ing each day. "Ross G. Marvin, "College of Civil Engineering, Cornell University" With a sad heart I went to my cabin on the Roosevelt. Notwithstanding the good fortune with which we had accomplished the return, the death of Marvin emphasized the danger to which we had all been subjected, for there was not one of us but had been in the water of a lead at some time during the journey. Despite the mental depression that resulted from this terrible news about poor Marvin, for twenty-four hours after my return I felt physically as fit as ever and ready to hit the trail again if necessary. But at the end of twenty -four hours the reaction came, and it came with a bump. It was, of course, the inevitable result of complete change of diet and atmosphere, BACK TO LAND AGAIN 323 and the substitution of inaction in place of incessant effort. I had no energy or ambition for anything. Scarcely could I stop sleeping long enough to eat, or eating long enough to sleep. My ravenous appetite was not the result of hunger or short rations, for we had all had plenty to eat on the return from the Pole. It was merely because none of the ship's food seemed to have the satisfying effect of pemmican, and I could not seem to hold enough to satisfy my appetite. How- ever, I knew better than to gorge myself and compro- mised by eating not much at a time, but at frequent intervals. Oddly enough, this time there was no swelling of the feet or ankles and in three or four days we all began to feel like ourselves. Anyone who looks at the contrasted pictures of the Eskimos, taken before and after the sledge trip, will realize, perhaps, some- thing of the physical strain of a journey to the Pole and back, and will read into the day-by-day narrative of our progress all the details of soul-racking labor and exhaustion which at the time we had been obliged stoically to consider as a part of the day's work, in order to win our goal. One of the first things done after reaching the ship and bringing our sleep up to date was to reward the Eskimos who had served us so faithfully. They were all fitted out with rifles, shotguns, cartridges, shells, reloading tools, hatchets, knives, and so on, and they behaved like so many children who had just received a boundless supply of toys. Among the things I have given them at various times, none are more important than the telescopes, which enable them to distinguish 324 THE NORTH POLE game in the distance. The four who stood with me at the Pole were to receive whale-boats, tents, and other treasures when I dropped them at their home settlements along the Greenland coast on the south- ward journey of the Roosevelt. PERMANENT MONUMENT ERECTED AT CAPE COLUMBIA TO MARK POINT OF DEPARTURE AND RETURN OF NORTH POLE SLEDGE PARTY < 3 CHAPTER XXXV LAST DAYS AT CAPE SHERIDAN IT is not long now to the end of the story. On returning to the Roosevelt I learned that MacMillan and the doctor had reached the ship March 21, Borup on April 11, the Eskimo survivors of Marvin's party April 17, and Bartlett on April 24. MacMillan and Borup had started for the Greenland coast, before my return, to deposit caches for me, in the event that I should be obliged by the drifting of the ice to come back that way, as in 1906. (Borup, on his return to the land, had deposited a cache for me at Cape Fanshawe Martin, on the Grant Land coast, some eighty miles west from Cape Columbia, thus providing for a drift in either direction.) Borup also, with the aid of the Eskimos, built at Cape Columbia a permanent monument, consisting of a pile of stones formed round the base of a guide- post made of sledge planks, with four arms pointing true north, south, east, and west — the whole sup- ported and guyed by numerous strands of heavy sounding wire. On each arm is a copper plate, with an inscription punched in it. On the eastern arm is, "Cape Morris K. Jesup, May 16, 1900, 275 miles;" on the southern arm is, "Cape Columbia, June 6, 1906;" on the western arm is, "Cape Thomas H. Hubbard, July 1, 1906, 225 miles;" on the northern arm, "North 325 326 THE NORTH POLE Pole, April 6, 1909, 413 miles." Below these arms, in a frame covered with glass to protect it from the weather, is a record containing the following: PEARY ARCTIC CLUB NORTH POLE EXPEDITION, 1908 S. S. Roosevelt, June 12th, 1909. This monument marks the point of departure and return of the sledge expedition of the Peary Arctic Club, which in the spring of 1909 attained the North Pole. The members of the expedition taking part in the sledge work were Peary, Bartlett, Goodsell, Marvin,1 MacMillan, Borup, Henson. The various sledge divisions left here February 28th and March 1st, and returned from March 18th to April 23rd. The Club's Steamer Roosevelt win- tered at C. Sheridan, 73 miles east of here. R. E. Peaby, U. S. N. Commander, R. E. Peary, U. S. N., Comdg. Expedition. Captain R. A. Bartlett, Master of Roosevelt. Chief Engr. George A. Wardwell. Surgeon J. W. Goodsell. Prof. Ross G. Marvin, Assistant. Prof. D. B. McMillan, George Borup, M. A. Henson, Charles Percy, Steward. Mate Thomas Gushue. Bosun John Connors. Seaman John Coadey. John Barnes. Dennis Murphy. George Percy. 2nd Engr. Banks Scott. Fireman James Bently. Patrick Joyce. Patrick Skeans. John Wiseman. browned April 10th, returning from 86° 38' N. Lat. On the 18th MacMillan and Borup with five Eskimos and six sledges had departed for the Green- land coast to establish depots of supplies in case my party should be obliged to make its landing there as in 1906, and also to make tidal readings at Cape Morris Jesup. I, therefore, at once started two Eski- mos off for Greenland with a sounding apparatus and a letter informing MacMillan and Borup of our final success. It had been the plan to have Bartlett make LAST DAYS AT SHERIDAN 327 a line of ten or five mile soundings from Columbia to Camp No. 8 to bring out the cross section of the continental shelf and the deep channel along it, and Bartlett had got his equipment ready for this purpose. However, I decided not to send him for the reason that he was not in the best physical condition, his feet and ankles being considerably swollen, while he was, moreover, afflicted with a number of Job's comforters. My own physical condition, however, remained perfect during the rest of our stay in the north, with the exception of a bad tooth from which I suffered more or less torture during a space of three weeks. This was the first time in all my arctic expeditions that I had been at headquarters through May and June. Hitherto there had always seemed to be some- thing more to be done in the field; but now the principal work was completed, and it remained only to arrange the results. In the meantime the energies of the Eskimos were largely employed in short journeys in the neighborhood, most of them for the purpose of visiting the various supply depots established between the ship and Cape Columbia and removing their unused supplies to the ship. Between them these various small expeditions did some interesting work. Most of this supplementary work in the field was accomplished by other members of the expedition, but I had plenty of work on board the Roosevelt Along about the 10th of May we began to get genuine spring weather. On that day Bartlett and myself began spring housecleaning. We overhauled the cabins, cleared out the dark corners, and dried out everything 328 THENORTHPOLE that needed it, the quarter-deck being littered with all kinds of miscellaneous articles the whole day. On the same day spring work on the ship was also begun, the winter coverings being taken off the Roose- velt's stack and ventilators, and preparations being made for work on the engines. A few days later a beautiful white fox came to the ship and attempted to get on board. One of the Eskimos killed him. The creature behaved in an extraordinary manner, acting, in fact, just like the Eskimo dogs when those creatures run amuck. The Eskimos say that in the Whale Sound region foxes often seem to go mad in the same way and sometimes attempt to break into the igloos. This affliction from which arctic dogs and foxes suffer, while apparently a form of madness, does not seem to have any relation to rabies since it does not appear to be contagious or infectious. The spring weather, though unmistakably the real thing, was fickle on the whole. On Sunday, May 16, for example, the sun was hot and the temperature high, and the snow all about us was disappearing almost like magic, pools of water forming about the ship; but the next day we had a stiff southwest gale with considerable wet snow. On the whole, it was a very disagreeable day. On the 18th the engineer's force began work on the boilers in earnest. Four days later two Eskimos returned from MacMillan, whom they had left at Cape Morris Jesup on the Greenland coast. They brought notes from him giving some details of his work there. On the 31st MacMillan and Borup LAST DAYS AT SHERIDAN 329 themselves arrived from Greenland, having made the return trip from Cape Morris Jesup, a distance of 270 miles, in eight marches, an average of 34 miles per march. MacMillan reported that he got as far as 84° 17' north of Cape Jesup, had made a sounding which showed a depth of 90 fathoms, and had obtained ten days' tidal observations. They brought in as many of the skins and as much of the meat as the sledges could carry of 52 musk-oxen which they had killed. Early in June, Borup and MacMillan continued their work; MacMillan making tidal observations at Fort Conger; and Borup erecting at Cape Columbia the monument which has been already described. MacMillan while taking tidal observations at Fort Conger on Lady Franklin Bay, to connect our work at Capes Sheridan, Columbia, Bryant, and Jesup with the observation of the Lady Franklin Bay expedition of 1881-83, found still some remains of the supplies of the disastrous Greely expedition of 1881-84. They included canned vegetables, potatoes, hominy, rhubarb, pemmican, tea, and coffee. Strange to say, after the lapse of a quarter of a century, many of these supplies were still in good condition, and some of them were eaten with relish by various members of our party. One of the finds was a text book which had belonged to Lieutenant Kislingbury, who lost his life with the Greely party. Upon its flyleaf it bore this inscription : "To my dear father, from his affectionate son, Harry Kislingbury. May God be with you and return you safely to us." Greely 's old coat was also found lying on the ground. This also was in good con- 330 THENORTHPOLE dition and I believe that MacMillan wore it for some days. All hands were now beginning to look forward to the time when the Roosevelt should again turn her nose toward the south and home. Following our own housecleaning, the Eskimos had one on June 12. Every movable article was taken out of their quarters, and the walls, ceilings, and floors were scrubbed, dis- infected, and whitewashed. Other signs of returning summer were observed on all sides. The surface of the ice-floe was going blue, the delta of the river was quite bare, and the patches of bare ground ashore were growing larger almost hourly. Even the Roosevelt seemed to feel the change and gradually began to right herself from the pronounced list which she had taken under the press of the ice in the early winter. On June 16 we had the first of the summer rains, though the next morning all the pools of water were frozen over. On the same day Borup captured a live musk calf near Clements Markham Inlet. He managed to get his unique captive back to the ship alive, but the little creature died the next evening, though the steward nursed him carefully in an effort to save his life. On the summer solstice, June 22, midnoon of the arctic summer and the longest day of the year, it snowed all night; but a week later the weather seemed almost tropical, and we all suffered from the heat, strange though it seems to say it. The glimpses of open water off Cape Sheridan were increasing in frequency and size, and on July 2 we could see a con- siderable lake just off the point of this cape. The LAST DAYS AT SHERIDAN 331 4th of July as we observed it would have pleased the advocates of "a quiet Fourth. " What with the recent death of Marvin and the fact that the day was Sunday, nothing out of the ordinary routine was done except to dress the ship with flags, and there was scarcely enough wind even to display our bunting. Three years ago that very day the Roosevelt got away from her winter quarters at almost the same spot in a strong southerly gale; but the experience on that occasion convinced me that it would be best to hang on in our present position just as late in July as possi- ble, and thus give the ice in Robeson and Kennedy Channels more time to break up. It almost seemed as if the Roosevelt shared with us our anticipation of a speedy return, for she continued gradually to regain an even keel, and within four or five days she had automatically completed this opera- tion. On the 8th we put out the eight-inch hawser and made the ship fast, bow and stern, in order to hold her in position in case she should be subjected to any pressure before we were ready to depart. On the same day we began in real earnest to make ready for the home- ward departure. The work began with the taking on of coal, which, it will be remembered, had been transferred to shore along with quantities of other supplies when we went into winter quarters, in order to make provisions against the loss of the ship by fire, or ice pressure, or what not, in the course of the winter. The process of getting the ship ready for her homeward voyage does not require detailed description. Suffice it to say that it furnished the entire party with hard work and plenty of it for fully ten days. 332 THENORTHPOLE At the expiration of that period Bartlett reported the ship ready to sail. Observation of conditions off shore revealed the fact that Robeson Channel was practicable for navigation. Our work was done, success had crowned our efforts, the ship was ready, we were all fit, and on July 18, with only the tragic memory of the lost lamented Marvin to lessen our high spirits, the Roosevelt pulled slowly out from the cape and turned her nose again to the south. Off Cape Union the Roosevelt was intentionally forced out into the ice to fight a way down the center of the channel in accordance with my deliberate program. For a ship of the Roosevelfs class, this is the best and quickest return route — far preferable to hugging the shore. The voyage to Battle Harbor was comparatively uneventful. It involved, of course, as does any journey in those waters, even under favorable conditions, unceasing watchfulness and skill in ice navigation, but the trip was without pronounced adventure. On August 8 the Roosevelt emerged from the ice and passed Cape Sabine, and the value of experience and the new departure of forcing the ship down the center of the channel instead of along shore will be appre- ciated from the fact that we were now thirty-nine days ahead of our 1906 record on the occasion of our previous return from Cape Sheridan, although we had left Cape Sheridan considerably later than before. The voyage from Cape Sheridan to Cape Sabine had been made in fifty-three days, less time than in 1906. We stopped at Cape Saumarez, the Nerke of the LAST DAYS AT SHERIDAN 333 Eskimos, and a boat's crew went ashore. It was there I first heard of the movements of Dr. Frederick Cook during the previous year while absent from Anoratok. We arrived at Etah on the 17th of August. There I learned further details as to the movements of Dr. Cook during his sojourn in that region. At Etah we picked up Harry Whitney, who had spent the winter in that neighborhood in arctic hunting. Here, also, we killed some seventy-odd walrus for the Eskimos, whom we distributed at their homes whence we had taken them in the previous summer. They were all as children, yet they had served us well. They had, at times, tried our tempers and taxed our patience; but after all they had been faithful and efficient. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that I had known every member of the tribe for nearly a quarter of a century, until I had come to regard them with a kindly and personal interest, which any man must feel with regard to the members of any inferior race who had been accustomed to respect and depend upon him during the greater part of his adult life. We left them all better supplied with the simple necessities of arctic life than they had ever been before, while those who had participated in the sledge journey and the winter and spring work on the northern shore of Grant Land were really so enriched by our gifts that they assumed the importance and standing of arctic millionaires. I knew, of course, that in all probability I should never see them again. This feeling was tempered with the knowledge of success; but it was not without keen regret that I 334 THENORTHPOLE looked my last upon these strange and faithful people who had meant so much to me. We cleared from Cape York on August 26, and on September 5 we steamed into Indian Harbor. Here the first despatch that went over the wires was to Mrs. Peary: "Have made good at last. I have the Pole. Am well. Love/' followed in rapid succession by one from Bartlett to his mother; and, among others, one to H. L. Bridgman, secretary of the Peary Arctic Club: "Sun," a cipher meaning, "Pole reached. Roosevelt safe." Three days later the Roosevelt reached Battle Har- bor. On September 13 the ocean-going tug Douglas H. Thomas arrived from Sydney, C. B., a distance of four hundred and seventy-five miles, bringing Regan and Jefferds, representatives of the Associated Press, whom I greeted by saying, "This is a new record in newspaper enterprise, and I appreciate the compli- ment. " Three days later the Canadian Government cable steamer, Tyrian, in command of Captain Dick- son, arrived, bringing twenty -three special correspond- ents who had been hurried north as soon as our first despatches had reached New York, and on the 21st of September, as the Roosevelt was approaching the little town of Sydney, Cape Breton,' we saw a beautiful sea-going yacht approaching us. It was the Sheelah, whose owner, Mr. James Ross, was bringing Mrs. Peary and our children up to meet me. Further down the bay we met a whole flotilla of boats, gay with bunting and musical with greetings. As we neared the city, the entire water-front was alive with people. The little town to which I had re- LAST DAYS AT SHERIDAN 335 turned so many times unsuccessful gave us a royal welcome as the Roosevelt came back to her once more, flying at her mastheads, besides the Stars and Stripes and the ensign of our Canadian hosts and cousins, a flag which never before had entered any port in history, the North Pole flag. Little more remains to be said. The victory was due to experience; to the courage, endurance, and devotion of the members of the expedi- tion, who put all there was in them into the work; and to the unswerving faith and loyalty of the officers, members, and friends of the Peary Arctic Club, who furnished the sinews of war, without which nothing could have been accomplished. APPENDIX I Summary of Bathymetrical, Tidal, and Meteor- ological Observations1 by r. a. harris, Coast and Geodetic Survey, Washington, D.C. Soundings. — Previous to the expeditions of Peary, little was known concerning the depths of that portion of the Arctic Ocean which lies north of Greenland and Grant Land. In 1876 Markham and Parr at a point nearly north of Cape Joseph Henry, in latitude 83° 20V, and longitude 63° W.,found a depth of 72 fathoms. In 1882 Lockwood and Brainard at a point lying north- erly from Cape May, in latitude about 82° 38' N., and longitude about 51i° W., sounded to a depth of 133 fathoms without touching bottom. The motion of the polar pack was inferred by Lock- wood from the existence of a tidal crack extending from Cape May to Beaumont Island. Peary's journeys along the northern coast of Greenland in 1900, and upon the Arctic ice in 1902 and 1906, firmly estab- lished the motion suspected by Lockwood. In April of the years 1902 and 1906 he found an eastward drifting of the ice due to westerly or northwesterly winds. Moreover, along the line of separation be- tween two ice-fields the northern field had a greater eastward motion than had the field to the south of the 1 Transmitted by O. H. Tittmann, Superintendent, Coast and Geodetic Survey. 337 338 APPENDIX I line. These facts, together with the water sky observed to the north of Cape Morris Jesup in 1900, strongly indicated the existence of deep water between Green- land and the North Pole. Though few in number, the soundings taken in 1909 between Cape Columbia and the Pole are of great interest to geographers. The accompanying diagram shows the results obtained. A # 4? c_ s \ IL-4 \y 8 '8 >-vi L^/fuJ. /■««— *—*"•* v-r />*^-» -*/1fc1S*. *»-» *»-» . tea. Msfll H.t*t*m fr-* ««• ■o-«ur #f-*r iff - »-r These soundings prove the existence of a continental shelf covered by about 100 fathoms of water and whose edge, north of Cape Columbia, lies about 46 sea miles from the shore. In latitude 84° 29' the depth was found to be 825 fathoms, while in latitude 85° 23' it was found to be only 310 fathoms. This diminution in depth is a fact of considerable interest in reference to the possible existence of land to the westward. The three soundings taken between the point of comparatively shallow water and the Pole failed to reach bottom. The one made within five sea miles of the Pole proved the depth there to be at least 1500 fathoms. This is not at variance with the northern- APPENDIX I 339 most sounding taken by the Fram, at a point north of Franz Josef Land and in latitude about 85° 20', viz., 1640 fathoms and no bottom. Tides. — Tidal observations upon the arctic coasts of Grant Land and Greenland were carried out under instructions from the Coast and Geodetic Survey, this Bureau having been ordered by President Roosevelt through the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to have such work undertaken. The object was to secure observations along the northern coasts of Grant Land and Greenland at a sufficient number of places for determining the tides in this region; it being the belief that such observations might throw light upon the possible existence of a "considerable land mass in the unknown area of the Arctic Ocean." Systematic tidal and meteorological observations were carried on day and night at Cape Sheridan, Point Aldrich (near Cape Columbia), Cape Bryant, Cape Morris Jesup, and Fort Conger — the periods of time covered at these stations being about 231, 29, 28, 10, and 15 days, respectively.1 The tides were observed upon vertical staves or poles held in position by means of stones placed around them at the bottom of the shallow water along the coast. At Cape Sheridan, Point Aldrich, and Cape Bryant igloos were built over the tide staves. These being heated, usually by means of oil-stoves, the ob- servers were enabled to maintain open well-holes with comparative ease. 1 These observations were made by Marvin and MacMillan, assisted by Borup, seaman Barnes, and fireman Wiseman. — R.E.P. 340 APPENDIX I In order to secure fixed data of reference, perma- nent bench marks were established on the land, not far from the igloos or tide staves. The ice-covering of the water nearly obliterated all wind waves which generally impair the accuracy of staff readings made in open bodies of water. The measurement of the height upon staff of the surface of the water, as the surface rose and fell in the well-holes, was carried on with great precision, a fact which the plottings of the observations have well brought out. The observations were taken hourly; and during a large percentage of the time these were supplemented by observations taken more frequently, often at intervals of ten minutes each. The chronometer used in connection with tidal work was compared with true Greenwich time at New York before and after the cruise to the Arctic. The com- parisons showed that during this period of 461 days the average daily gain of the chronometer was 2.2 seconds. The mean lunitidal intervals and the mean ranges of tide, together with the approximate geographical positions of the stations, are as follows: Station Latitude Longitude HW Interval LW Interval Mean Rise and Fall 82 83 82 83 81 81 27 07 21 40 44 44 61 69 55 33 64 64 21 44 30 35 44 44 h m 10 31 7 58 0 03 10 49 11 35 11 33 h m 4 14 1 50 6 22 4 33 5 15 5 20 Feet 1.76 Point Aldrich 0.84 Cape Bryant 1.07 C. Morris Jesup 0.38 Fort Conger 4.06 Fort Conger1 4.28 1 Results from Greely's observations, 1881-83, covering a period of nearly two years. APPENDIX I 341 The harmonic constants for these places will be given in a paper on Arctic Tides about to be issued by the Coast and Geodetic Survey. As indicated by its name, a "lunitidal interval" is the time elapsing between the passage of the moon across the meridian of the place or station and the occurrence of high or low water. If two stations have the same longitude, then the difference between the lunitidal intervals for the two stations denotes the difference in the times of occurrence of the tides. If they have not the same longitude, then the intervals must be converted into lunar hours (1 lunar hour = 1.035 solar hours) and increased by the west longitude of the stations expressed in hours. The result will be the tidal hours of the stations expressed in Green- wich lunar time. The difference between the tidal hours for two stations will be the difference in the time of occurrence of the tides expressed in lunar hours. One of the most important results brought out from the tidal observations of the expedition is the fact that high water occurs two hours earlier (in absolute time) at Cape Columbia than at Cape Sheridan. The Cape Columbia tides are even earlier than the tides along the northern coast of the Spitzbergen Islands. These facts prove that the tide at Cape Columbia comes from the west. It is the Baffin Bay tide transmitted, first, north- westerly through the eastern portion of the Arctic Archipelago to the Arctic Ocean, and then easterly along the northern coast of Grant Land to Cape Columbia. That the tide wave should be felt after a passage of this kind, instead of practically disap- 342 APPENDIX I pearing after entering the Arctic Ocean, is one argument for the existence of a waterway of limited width to the northwest of Grant Land. This suggests that Crocker Land, first seen by Peary on June 24, 1906, from an altitude of about 2000 feet, may form a portion of the northern boundary of this channel or waterway. The tides along the northern coast of Greenland are due mainly to the large rise-and-fall occurring at the head of Baffin Bay. The Arctic Ocean being of itself a nearly tideless body so far as semidaily tides are concerned, it follows that the time of tide varies but little as one goes through Smith Sound, Kane Basin, Kennedy Channel, and Robeson Channel; in other words there exists a stationary oscillation in this waterway. The northeasterly trend of the shore line of Peary Land beyond Robeson Channel and the deflecting force due to the earth's rotation tend to pre- serve, far to the northeastward and partly in the form of a free wave of transmission, the disturbance result- ing from the stationary oscillation in the straits. The tide observations indicate that this disturbance is felt as far as Cape Morris Jesup, where the semidaily range of tide is only 0.38 foot. At Cape Bryant, northeast of Robeson Channel, the range is 1.07 feet. These values, taken in connection with the Robeson Channel disturbance, indicate that the time of tide along the coast of Peary Land becomes later as one travels east- ward from Cape Bryant. Owing to the comparatively short distance between Cape Bryant and Cape Morris Jesup, it is probable that at the latter point the crest of the wave trans- APPENDIX I 343 mitted from the southwest will appear to arrive much earlier than will the crest of the wave passing between Spitzbergen Islands and Greenland. In this way the small size of the semidaily tide at Cape Morris Jesup, as well as its time of occurrence, can be partially explained. A no-tide point doubtless exists in Lincoln Sea, off Peary Land. The semidiurnal tidal forces vanish at the Pole and are very small over the entire Arctic Ocean. As a consequence the semidiurnal portion of the tide wave in these regions is almost wholly derived from the tides in the Atlantic Ocean. The diurnal forces attain a maximum at the Pole and produce sensible tides in the deeper waters of the Arctic Ocean. Such tides are essentially equilibrium tides for this nearly enclosed body of water. The diurnal portion of the Baffin Bay tide produces the diurnal portion of the tide in Smith Sound, Kane Basin, and Kennedy Channel. In pass- ing from Fort Conger to the Arctic Ocean one could reasonably expect to find a great change in the time of occurrence of the diurnal tide in going a comparatively short distance; in other words the change in the tidal hour for the diurnal wave would probably be considerable where the Baffin Bay tide joins the arctic tide. Peary's observations show that such is the case. They show that the diurnal tide at Cape Bryant, Cape Sheridan, Point Aldrich, and Cape Morris Jesup follows that at Fort Conger by respective intervals of 3 J, 5, 6, and 8 hours. They also show that in going north- ward from Fort Conger to Point Aldrich the ratio of 344 APPENDIX I the two principal diurnal constituents approximates more and more nearly to the theoretical ratio; that is, to the ratio between the two corresponding tidal forces. This is what one would expect to find in pas- sing from a region possessing diurnal tides derived from the irregular tides of Baffin Bay to a region where the equilibrium diurnal tides of the Arctic become important. The range and time of occurrence of the diurnal tide at Point Aldrich do not differ greatly from their equilibrium values based upon the assumption of a deep polar basin extending from Grant Land and the Arctic Archipelago to the marginal waters off the portion of the coast of Siberia lying east of the New Siberian Islands. But De Long's party observed tides at Bennett Island in 1881. From these observations it is seen that the diurnal tide has a much smaller range than would be permissible under the hypothesis of deep water in the portion of the Arctic Basin just referred to. The diurnal tides at Pitlekaj, Point Barrow, and Flaxman Island are, as noted below, also too small to permit of this hypothesis. The smallness of the diurnal tide in the cases cited can probably be explained on no other assumption than that of obstructing land masses extending over a considerable portion of the unknown region of the Arctic Ocean. No further attempt will be made here to prove the necessity for a tract of land, an archipelago, or an area of very shallow water situated between the present Arctic Archipelago and Siberia. A brief discussion of this question, together with a tidal map of the Arctic Regions, will be found in a paper about to be issued APPENDIX I 345 by the Coast and Geodetic Survey and which has been already referred to. A few pertinent facts may, how- ever, be mentioned. (1) At Point Barrow, Alaska, the flood stream comes from the west and not from the north, as the hypothesis of an extensive, deep polar basin implies. (2) The semidaily range of tide at Bennett Island is 2.5 feet, while it is only 0.4 foot at Point Barrow and 0.5 foot at Flaxman Island, Alaska. This indicates that obstructing land masses lie between the deep basin or channel traversed by the Fram and the north- ern coast of Alaska. (3) The observed tidal hours and ranges of tide show that the semidaily tide is not propagated from the Greenland Sea to the Alaskan coast directly across a deep and uninterrupted polar basin. (4) The observed ranges of the diurnal tides at Teplitz Bay, Franz Josef Land; at Pitlekaj, north- eastern Siberia; and at Point Barrow and Flaxman Island have less than one-half of their theoretical equilibrium values based upon the assumption of an uninterrupted and deep polar basin. In addition to these facts are the following items which have a bearing upon the shape and size of this unknown land: The westerly drifting of the Jeannette. The westerly drifting north of Alaska observed by Mikkelsen and Leffingwell. The existence of Crocker Land. The shoaling indicated by a sounding of 310 fathoms taken in Lat. 85° 23' N. 346 APPENDIX I The eastward progression of the tide wave along the northern coast of Grant Land as shown by obser- vations at Point Aldrich, Cape Sheridan, and Cape Bryant. The great age of the ice found in Beaufort Sea. Items of some importance in this connection, but which cannot be regarded as established facts are: The probable westerly courses taken by casks set adrift off Point Barrow and off Cape Bathurst, the one recovered on the northeastern coast of Iceland, the other on the northern coast of Norway; The question suggested by Harrison whether or not enough ice escapes from the Arctic to account for the quantity which must be formed there if one were to adopt the assumption of an unobstructed polar basin. Taking various facts into consideration, it would seem that an obstruction (land, islands, or shoals) containing nearly half a million square statute miles probably exists. That one corner lies north of Bennett Island; another, north of Point Barrow; another, near Banks Land and Prince Patrick Island; and another, at or near Crocker Land. Meteorology. — Regular hourly observations of the thermometer and barometer were carried on day and night by the tide observers. A brief resume of the results obtained is given below, together with a few taken from the Report of the Pro- ceedings of the U. S. Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay by Lieutenant (now General) A. W. Greely. APPENDIX I Temperatures 347 Cape Sheridan Fort Conger l November 14-30 , December, 1908 January, 1909 February, 1909 March, 1909 April, 1909 May, 1909 June, 1909 November 17-December 13, 1908. January 16-February 12, 1909 . . . May 17-May 22, 1909 June 11-June 25, 1909 Maximum Minimum - 7 - 5 - 6 - 7 + 13 + 13 + 46 + 52 - 7 -21 + 37 + 50 -39 -53 -49 -49 -52 -37 -15 + 15 -39 -48 + 12 + 25 Mean - 23.96 - 29.22 - 30.61 - 31.71 - 20.87 - 15.63 + 18.00 + 31.51 -25.75 - 35.48 + 22.97 + 34.17 Mean - 28.10 - 38.24 - 40.13 - 28.10 - 13.55 + 14.08 + 32.65 Temperatures Station Point Aldrich near Cape Columbia Cape Bryant Cape Morris Jesup Fort Conger Fort Conger1 .... Fort Conger2 .... Date Nov. 17-Dec. 13, 1908 Jan. 16-Feb. 12, 1909 May 17-May 22, 1909 June 11-June 25, 1909 June 11-June 25, 1882 June 11-June 25, 1883 Maximum Minimum o 0 - 14 -46 - 12 -55 + 35 + 16 + 54 + 28 + 44.4 + 26.7 + 39.6 + 26.4 Mean - 31.96 - 36.68 + 27.92 + 34.44 + 34.883 + 33.393 From these values we see that from November 17 to December 13, 1908, the average temperature at Point Aldrich was 6.21 degrees lower than the tempera- ture at Cape Sheridan for the same period; that from January 16 to February 12, 1909, the average tempera- 1 Observations made in 1875-76 and 1881-83. Greely's Report, Vol. II, p. 230. 1 Greely's Report, Vol. II, pp. 196, 197, 220, 221. Hourly readings used. 348 APPENDIX I ture at Cape Bryant was 1.20 degrees lower than that at Cape Sheridan; that from May 17 to May 22, 1909, the average temperature at Cape Morris Jesup was 4.95 degrees higher than that at Cape Sheridan; and that from June 11 to June 25, 1909, the average tem- perature at Fort Conger was practically the same as that at Cape Sheridan during this period. Barometer Readings (Uncorrected) Station Date Maximum Minimum Mean Mean • o 0 Fort Conger1 Cape Sheridan . . . Nov. 13-30, 1908 30.42 28.96 29.899 Dec, 1908 30.27 30.42 30.59 29.28 29.18 29.03 29.749 29.752 29.772 29.922 Jan., 1909 29.796 Feb., 1909 29.672 March, 1909 30.89 29.69 30.282 29.893 April, 1909 30.58 29.20 29.991 30.099 May, 1909 30.60 30.21 29.39 29.37 30.105 29.804 30.066 June, 1909 29.878 Nov. 17-Dec. 13, 1908 30.42 29.26 29.866 Jan. 16-Feb. 4, 1909. . 30.40 29.18 29.691 May 14-May 22, 1909 30.52 30.04 30.304 June 11-June 25, 1909 30.10 29.47 29.834 Point Aldrich .... Nov. 17-Dec. 13, 1908 30.51 29.35 29.998 Jan. 16-Feb. 4, 1909. . 30.10 29.83 29.976 Cape Morris Jesup May 14-May 22, 1909 30.70 30.24 30.469 Fort Conger June 11-June 25, 1909 30.19 29.74 30.013 Fort Conger2 June 11-June 25, 1882 30.129 29.416 29.817 Fort Conger2 June 11-June 25, 1883 30.218 29.590 29.949 The above tabulation shows that during the month the average fluctuation of the barometer at Cape Sheri- dan amounts to 1.2 inches, being greatest in February and least in June. 1 Observations made in 1881-83. Greely's Report, Vol. II, p. 166. 2Greely's Report, Vol. II, pp. 122, 123, 146, 147. Hourly readings are reduced to sea level. APPENDIX I 349 An inspection of the monthly means shows that the barometer at Cape Sheridan is lowest for the months of December and January, or about January 1st, and highest about April 1st, the range of the fluctuation being about 0.5 inch. These results agree well with those obtained by Greely at Fort Conger and illus- trated by a diagram upon p. 166, Vol. II, of his Report. From a tabulation made according to hours of the day, but not given here, there is seen to be a diurnal fluctuation at Cape Sheridan amounting to a little more than y-ou- of an inch. The minima of this fluctu- ation are fairly well defined from November to April and occur at about 2 o'clock both a.m. and p.m. After leaving Etah, August 17, 1908, on the voyage northward until July 12, 1909, thermograms covering 5} months and barograms covering nine months of this interval were obtained from self-recording instruments. These are records in addition to the direct hourly read- ings of the thermometer and barometer made by the tide observers and from which the above results have been deduced. APPENDIX II Facsimiles of Original Observations by Marvin, Bart- lett, and Peary and of Original Certificates by Marvin and Bartlett, respectively, during the Sledge Journey to the Pole. I. Marvin's Observations, March 22, 1909. II. Marvin's Observations, March 25, 1909. III. Certificate of Marvin as to the Position of the Expedition on March 25, 1909. IV. Bartlett's Observations, April 1, 1909. V. Certificate of Bartlett as to the Position of the Expedition April 1, 1909. VI. Peary's Observations April 6, 1909. [Note. — The originals were all made in pencil in notebooks. The engravings in line printed in this appendix are reproductions in slightly reduced size of tracings carefully made of the original manuscripts. The enclosing line in each case indi- cates the edges of the leaf on which the original work was written. The size of this leaf is, with practical uniformity throughout the series, 4x6f inches. The facsimiles of Peary's observations of April 7, 1909, (q. v.) on pages 292 and 293 have been similarly made but are in the exact size of the originals. The Publishers.] 850 APPENDIX II 351 I. (a) FACSIMILE, SLIGHTLY REDUCED IN SIZE, OF MARVIN'S OBSERVATIONS OF MARCH 22, 1909 352 APPENDIX II I. (6) FACSIMILE, SLIGHTLY REDUCED IN SIZE, OF MARVIN'S OBSERVATIONS OF MARCH 22, 1909 APPENDIX II 353 ■\UAol 15 Ik „ \<\i f J II. (a) FACSIMILE, SLIGHTLY REDUCED IN SIZE, OF MARVIN'S OBSERVATIONS OF MARCH 25, 1909 354 APPENDIX II H. (b) FACSIMILE, SLIGHTLY REDUCED IN SIZE, OF MARVIN'S OBSERVATIONS OF MARCH 25, 1909 APPENDIX II 355 ^H S I ! S" ^ o a - 3£ •iff.*? ,rn-.qs~. -1^.7 o, 4 II. (c) FACSIMILE, SLIGHTLY REDUCED IN SIZE, OF MARVIN'S OBSERVATIONS OF MARCH 25, 1909 356 APPENDIX II ^1 ^ Oil VA \^* III. (a) FACSIMILE, SLIGHTLY REDUCED IN SIZE, OF MAR- VIN'S CERTIFICATE OF MARCH 25, 1909 APPENDIX II 357 q^'aA, cvaX (kAAa/K hi. (6) facsimile, slightly reduced in size, of mar- vin's certificate of march 25, 1909 358 APPENDIX II (UrV^4 III. (c) FACSIMILE, SLIGHTLY REDUCED IN SIZE, OF MAR- VIN'S CERTIFICATE OF MARCH 25, 1909 APPENDIX II 359 H /j u—o *P ~ / J fc 0 t (1 Ckx, l+ck. ibj^jwCZf footer; <& buufr jO ^J A I V. (a) FACSIMILE, SLIGHTLY REDUCED IN SIZE, OF BART- lett's CERTIFICATE OF APRIL 1, 1909 APPENDIX II 361 i la- y^ /*-^— ruu-d. /2^^c V. (&) FACSIMILE, SLIGHTLY REDUCED IN SIZE, OF BART- lett's CERTIFICATE OF APRIL 1, 1909 362 APPENDIX II VI. FACSIMILE, SLIGHTLY REDUCED IN SIZE, OF PEARY'S OBSERVATIONS OF APRIL 6, 1909 APPENDIX III Report of the sub-commi.tee of the National Geographic Society on Peary's Records, and Some of the Honors Awarded for the Attainment of the Pole. The Board of Managers of the National Geographic Society at a meeting held at Hubbard Memorial Hall, November 4, 1909, received the following report : "The sub-committee to which was referred the task of examining the records of Commander Peary in evidence of his having reached the North Pole, beg to report that they have completed their task. "Commander Peary has submitted to his sub- committee his original journal and record of observa- tions, together with all his instruments and apparatus, and certain of the most important of the scientific results of his expedition. These have been carefully examined by your sub-committee, and they are unani- mously of the opinion that Commander Peary reached the North Pole on April 6, 1909. "They also feel warranted in stating that the organization, planning, and management of the expedi- tion, its complete success, and its scientific results, reflect the greatest credit on the ability of Com- mander Robert E. Peary, and render him worthy 363 364 APPENDIX III of the highest honors that the National Geographic Society can bestow upon him." (Signed) Henry Gannett.1 C. M. Chester.2 0. H. Tittman.3 The foregoing report was unanimously approved. Immediately after this action the following resolu- tions were unanimously adopted: " Whereas, Commander Robert E. Peary has reached the North Pole, the goal sought for centuries; and "Whereas, this is the greatest geographical achieve- ment that this society can have opportunity to honor: Therefore "Resolved, that a special medal be awarded to Commander Peary." Among the home and foreign honors awarded for the attainment of the pole are the following: 1 Henbt Gannett, chairman of the committee which reported on Commander Peary's observations, has been chief geographer of the United States Geological Survey since 1882; he is the author of "Manual of Topographic Surveying," "Statistical Atlases of the Tenth and Eleventh Censuses," "Dictionary of Alti- tudes," "Magnetic Declination in the United States," Stanford's "Compendium of Geography," and of many government reports. Mr. Gannett is vice-president of the National Geographic Society and was one of the founders of the society in 1888. * Rear-Admiral Colby M. Chester, United States Navy, was graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1863. He has held practically every impor- tant command under the Navy Department, including superintendent of the United States Naval Observatory, commander-in-chief Atlantic Squadron, Super- intendent of the United States Naval Academy, Chief Hydrographic Division, United States Navy. Admiral Chester has been known for many years as one of the best and most particular navigators in the service. * O. H. Tittman has been superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey since 1900. He is the member for the United States of the Alaskan Boundary Commission and was one of the founders of the National Geographic Society. THE SPECIAL GREAT GOLD MEDAL OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON (This medal is four inches in diameter) THE SPECIAL GREAT GOLD MEDAL OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. (ACTUAL SIZE) (Designed by the wife of Captain Robert F. Scott, R. N., Leader of the British South Polar Expeditions of 1901-1904 and 1910-1912) APPENDIX III 365 The Special Great Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society of Washington. The Special Gold Medal of the Philadelphia Geographical Society. The Helen Culver Medal of the Chicago Geographical Society. The Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws from Bowdoin College. The Special Great Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London. The Nachtigall Gold Medal of the Imperial German Geograph- ical Society. The King Humbert Gold Medal of the Royal Italian Geographical Society. The Hauer Medal of the Imperial Austrian Geographical Society. The Gold Medal of the Hungarian Geographical Society. The Gold Medal of the Royal Belgian Geographical Society. The Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of Antwerp. iA Special Trophy from the Royal Scottish Geographical Society — a replica in silver of the ships used by Hudson, Baffin, and The Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws from the Edinburgh University. . . Honorary Membership in the Manchester Geographical Society. Honorary Membership in the Royal Netherlands Geographical Society of Amsterdam. i At Edinburgh, at the conclusion of the address to the Royal Scottish Geo- graphical Society, Lord Balfour of Burleigh presented to Commander Peary a Tver model of a ship such as was used by illustrious arctic navigate, in the olden W The ship is a copy of a three-masted vessel in fnU sail such as was in use n the latter part of the sixteenth century. The mode i. , a beautiful specimen 3 he silversmith's art. On one of the sails is engraved the badge of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, while another bears the inscription in Latm from the oen of Mr. W. B. Blaikie, which, translated, is as follows: ^his model of a ship, such as was used by John Davis, Henry Hudson, and William Baffin, illustrious arctic navigators of the olden time has been presented by he Royal Scottish Geographical Society as an evidence of its congratula ion, admiration, and recognition to Robert Edwin Peary, American citizen, an explorer ofTe frozen Arctic, not less daring than his daring predecessors, who was the first to attain to that thrice-noble goal so long sought by innumerable bold manners, the North Pole. Edinburgh, May 24th, 1910." INDEX Advance, s.s., xxii. Africa, 75. Aground, 113. Ahteah, 131. Ahtetah, 178. Ahwatingwah, 141, 235. Akatingwah, 60. Alarm of fire, 35. Alaska, 344, 345. Aldrich, xxiii. Alert, s.s., 91, 129, 184. Aletah, 117, 141. Alps, 166. American, flag, 30, 294, 296, 335; route, 5. Amundsen, Roald, xxi. Amusements, 109, 181. Andree, xxvi. Angakok, 65. Anniversary Lodge, 130. Anoratok, 55, 76, 333. Antarctic, xx. "Antarctica," 180. "Antarctic Regions, The," 180. Arco, 141, 213, 235. Arctic, Archipelago, 341, 344; Circle, xvi; (crossing the, 36), 53, 79. 186; fisheries, xv; hares, 54, 110, 127, 138, 182, 189, 315; moon, 163; night, 37; Ocean, 4, 49, 193, 216, 337-344. Asia, xvi, 75. Associated Press, 334. Astronomical observations, 211. Astrup, xxix. Atlantic Ocean, xx, xxi, 343. Aurora, 186. Austrian-Hungarian expedition, xxvii. Back River, xx. Baffin Bay, xxi, xxvii, 3, 88, 90, 341- 343. Baffin, William, xxvii. Balch, 180. Bald Head, 33. Balfour, Lord, 365. Banks Land, 346. Barents, William, xv, xxvii. Barnes, John, 23, 167, 326. Barometer reading, 348. Bartlett, Robert, 76. Bartlett, Capt. Robert A., appreciation of, 269; career, 19, 20; decorating the ship, 130; delayed by leads, 308, 312; departure from Roosevelt, 213; des- patch to his mother, 334, dynamiting the ice, 115; facsimile of certificate, 360, 361; facsimile of observations, 359; farthest north, 267; hunting, 141, 179, 182, 191; in crow's nest, 105; master of the Roosevelt, 23, 111, 326; pioneer division, 203, 205, 214, 237, 241; returning to Roosevelt, 325; sounding, 262; taking observations, 266, 268; trail, 310, 314. Bartlett, Capt. Sam, 76. Bathurst, Cape, 345. Battle Harbor, 332, 334. Bay, Baffin, xxi, xxvii, 3, 88, 90, 341- 343; Black Cliffs, 130, 179; Cape York, 55; Casco, 27; Dobbin, 99; Independence, xxix, 151, 276; James Ross, 143, 144, 155, 179; Lady Franklin, 78, 329; Lincoln, 93, 106, 110, 112, 117, 118; McCormick, xxix; Melville, 36, 37, 39, 40, 53; Newman, 188; North Star, 38, 73; of Fundy, 168; of Naples, 74; Oyster, 26; Porter, 118, 120, 134, 140, 142, 143, 276; Princess Marie, 100; Robertson, 74; Teplitz- 345. Beaufort Sea, 345. Beaumont Island, 337. Beechy, Cape, 90. Belknap, Cape, 134, 138, 188. Benedict, H. H., 31. Bennett Island, 344-346 Bently, James, 23, 326 Bering, Sea, xvii, xx, xxi; Strait, xxi, 290. "Big Lead," crossed, 232, 314; de- scribed, 197, 237; Eskimos' fear of, 191. 367 368 INDEX Black Cape, 118, 119; River, 120. Black Cliffs Bay, 130, 179. Blackwell's Island, 25, 26. Booth, Felix, xviii, xix. Boothia Felix, xix. Borchgrevink, 180. Borup, Col., 29. Borup, George, account of walrus hunting, 80-87; added to expedition, 21; built monument at Cape Colum- bia, 325; captured musk-ox calf, 330; career, 22; celebrating, 184; delayed by leads, 312; deposited cache at Cape Fanshawe Martin, 325; divi- sion, 203, 214, 237, 241; farthest north 243; hunting, 141, 156, 179, 188, 330; return to Roosevelt, 325; taking obser- vations, 168; turned back, 243. Bowdoin College, xxviii, 296; degree of ll.d., 365. Box houses, 123, 177, 178, 188. Brainard, xxiii, 337. Breton, Cape, 28. Brevoort, Cape, 188; Island, 90. Bridgman, Herbert L., 16, 25, 27, 334. British Arctic expedition, 38, 129. Bryant, Cape, 168, 188, 190, 191, 339- 348. By-pass, 101, 104. Cabot Strait, 35. Cache of supplies, 110, 119, 191. Cagni, xxvi. Cairn, Alert, 129; Roosevelt, 129. Camp, Abruzzi, 308; Morris K. Jesup, 290; No. 4, 237; No. 5, 237; No. 8, 327; No. 11, 310; No. 19, 249. Canada, xx, 334, 335. Cantilever, 55. Cape, Bathurst, 345; Beechey, 90; Belknap, 134, 138, 188; Breton, 28; Brevoort, 188; Bryant, 168, 188, 190, 191, 339-348; Colan, 134, 179, 190, 191; Columbia, 4, 6, 7, 130-237, 280, 295, 310-329, 338-341, 347; Fan- shawe Martin, 325; Farewell, xv, Frazer, 91; Hecla, 141, 159, 190, 217, 226, 280, 317; Joseph Henry, 92, 222, 337; Lieber, 102; May, 337; Morris K. Jesup, 13, 21, 253, 254, 295, 326, 328, 338, 348; Rawson, 120, 317; Richardson, 134, 138; 140, 168; Sabine, 39, 89, 94, 95, 124, 332; Saumarez, 74, 332; Sheridan, 5, 6, 38, 77, 88-129, 157, 168, 178, 193, 213, 325, 330, 332, 339-349; St. Charles, 34; St. George, 35; Thomas Hubbard, 21, 110, 295, 325; Union, 110, 118, 188, 332; York, 32, 35, 39- 46, 70-73, 271, 334. Cape Sheridan River, 184. Cape York Bay, 55 Carnegie Institution, 76. Cary Islands, 38. Casco Bay, 27. Central Polar Sea, 38. Char, 128. Chester, C. M., 363. Chicago Geographical Society, medal of, 365. China, xv, 169. Christmas, 185. Clark, 271. Clements Markham Inlet, 141, 145, 156, 157, 179, 188, 190, 330. Coady, John, 23, 326. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 337, 339, 340. Colan, Cape, 134, 179, 190, 191. Collinson, Richard, xxi. Columbia, Cape, 4, 6, 7, 130-237, 280. 295, 310-329, 338-341, 347. Columbus, xxxii. Connors, John, 23, 326. Cook, Dr. Frederick A., 75, 76, 333. Coppermine River, xix. Cornell University, 252, 254, 322. Crafts, C. C, 76. "Crane CHy," 223, 316. Crane, Zenas, 16, 25. "Crimson Cliffs," 72. Crocker Land, 5, 341, 345, 346. Crow's nest, 105, 112. Crozier, xix, xx. Daily ration, 209. Dante, 255. Daughters of the American Revolution, 30. Davis, John, xv. Davis Strait, xxi, 3, 73. Dawn, 160. Deep-sea soundings, 210. Deer, 65, 87, 138, 140, 144, 145, 182. De Long, Com., xxiv, 344. Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, 30, 296. Departure from Roosevelt, 2?S. Diagram of soundings, 338. Dickson, Capt., 331. Discovery, s.s., 91. Dividing line, 40. INDEX 369 Dobbin Bay, 99. Dogs, Eskimo, condition of, 169; feeding on return march, 305; harnesses, 136. Douglas H. Thomas, s.s., 334. Duck Islands, 37, 38, 39. Duke of the Abruzzi, 12, 180, 236, 252, 254, 298, 308. Eagle, s.s., 28. Eagle Island, 27, 28, 31. East Greenland, xxvii. Edinburgh University, Degree of ll.d. 365. Egingwah, 69, 76, 142, 143, 146, 147, 148, 167, 251, 267, 269, 271, 299, 312. Eider-ducks, 138. Ellesmere Land, 76, 89, 90, 93. Emergency out6t, 96. Erebus, s.s., xx. Erik, s.s., 73, 74, 75, 76, 77. Eskimos, astronomers, 67; burial cus- toms, 65; characteristics of, 46; clothing, 131; dogs, 70, 135, 169; fear of "Big Lead," 191; fish spear, 127; home of a little tribe of, 36, 39; housecleaning on Roosevelt, 330; human qualities, 44; language, 50; marriage, 59; method of fishing, 127; money, 72; music, 65; of Danish Greenland, 46; on shipboard, 98; re- ligion, 63; rewarded, 323; sledge, 135, 217, 219, 237; theory as to origin, 49; villages, 42; whip, 136. Etah, 6, 38, 39, 43, 46, 73, 79, 88, 89, 90, 91, 95, 96, 103, 106, 124, 170, 213, 333. Expedition, Austrian-Hungarian, xxvii; British Arctic, 38, 129; first of Peary Arctic Club, 11, 12; German North Polar, xxvii; Greely's, 329; Hayes', 38; Kalstenius, 38; Koldewey's, 180; Lady Franklin Bay, 168; of 1905-6, 2, 91, 184, 302; Polaris, 38. Fanshawe Martin, Cape, 325. "Farthest North" of 1906, 188. Farewell, Cape, xv. Field work, 188. First Despatch from Peary, 334. Flag, American, 30, 294, 296, 335; North Pole, 335. Flaxman Island, 344, 345. Fort Conger, 93, 148, 168, 329, 339-348. Fort Totten, 26. Fourth of Julv, 331. Fox, 54, 127, 257, 307, 315, 328. From, s.s., xxv, 121, 338, 345. Franke, Rudolph, 75. Franklin, Lady, xx. Franklin, Sir John, xix, 9, 298, 321, record of death, xxi. Franz Josef Land, xxvi. Frazer, Cape, 91. Frederiksthaal, xxvii. Fricker, Carl, 180. Gannett, Henry, 363. Generosity of the public, 18. German North Polar expedition, xxvii. Gjoa, sloop, xxi. Glacial fringe, 194, 216, 314, 315. Goodsell, Dr. J. W., career, 21; extract from his journal, 157; explor- ing, 106, 128; hunting, 141, 179, 188; moving supplies, 138, 191; reached ship, 325; recording temperature, 190; slips from floe, 108; turns back, 235. Grant Land, 4, 6, 7, 38, 40, 90, 93, 134, 142, 168, 179, 193, 195, 300-315. Great Britain, xv, xxiii, 269. Great Fish River, xix. Great Greenland ice-cap, xxix, 53, 275, 276, 284. "Great Night," 161, 183. Greely, Lieut. A. W., xxx, xxxi, 39, 94, 180, 329, 340, 346, 348. Greenland, xxiii, xxix, xxx, 4, 11, 28, 32, 38, 45, 50, 89, 90, 102, 130, 187, 188, 195, 211-219, 303, 304, 325, 337; storms, 166; Sea, 345. Grinnell, Henry, xxii. Grinnell Land, 49. Grosvenor, Gilbert H., xxxii. Gulf of St. Lawrence, 101. Gushue, Thomas, 23, 112, 326. Hakluyt Island, 73. Hall Basin, xxii. Hall, Chas. Francis, xxii, 3, 180, 328. Hares, arctic, 54, 110, 127, 138, 182, 189, 315. Hareskin stockings, 257. Harkness, 34, 35. "Harrigan," 132, 203, 253, 319. Harris, R. A., 337. Harrison, 345. Hawks Harbor, 34. Hayes, 38, 180. Hecla, Cape, 141, 159, 190, 217, 226, 280. Henry VIII of England, xv. 370 INDEX Henson, Matthew, at the Pole, 296; career, 20; celebrating, 184; chosen for final dash, 272; hunting trips, 141, 179; hunting walrus, 81; inter- preter, 109; moving supplies, 191; pioneer division, 241; repairing sledge, 24(5; teaches igloo building, 172; visits Eskimos, 73. House where Peary wintered in 1901-2, 93. Hubbard, General Thomas H., 16, 25, 124. Hubbard Memorial Hall, 363. Hubbardville, 124, 128. "Hudson, the," 226. Hudson, Henry, xv, 298; Strait, 169. Hungarian Geographical Society, medal of, 365. Ice cake ferry, 250, 308. Ice, dynamiting the, 115. Iceland, 345. Igloo, construction of snow, 172, 173; construction of stone, 54, 57. Imperial Austrian Geographical Society, medal of, 365. Imperial German Geographical Society, medal of, 365. Independence, Bay, xxix, 18, 99, 151, 276; Bluff, 215. Inglefield, 180; Gulf, 73. Indian Harbor, 334. Indies, xv, xvi. Inighito, 141, 160, 167. Instrument used for observation at the Pole, 288. Ikwah, 52, 271. Italian record, 252, 269. Island, Beaumont, 337; Bennett, 344, 346; Blackwell, 25, 26; Brevoort, 90; Gary, 38; Duck, 37-39; Eagle, 27, 28, 31; Flaxman, 344, 345; Hakluyt, 73, New Siberian, 49, 344; Northumber- land, 73; Prince Patrick, 346; Salvo, 72; Spitzbergen, 341, 342; Turnavik, 35. Itiblu Glacier, 74. Jackman, Captain, 28. Jackson, xxvi. James Ross Bay, 143, 144, 155, 179. Jamestown, xv. Jeannette, s.s., xxiv, xxv, 101, 345. Jefferds, 334. Jesup Land, 295. Johanson, xxv. Johnson, 76. Joseph Henry, Cape, 92, 222, 337. Joyce, Patrick, 23, 326. Kalstenius, 38. Kamiks, 132, 209, 257. Kane Basin, 36, 53, 73, 94, 342, 343. Kane, Elisha Kent, xxii, 38, 180, 298. Kangerdlooksoah, 74. Karko, 141, 203, 253, 266. Kayaks, 42, 68. Kennedy Channel, 102, 331, 342, 343. Kernah, 74. Keshungwah, 141, 168, 203, 253, 266. King William Land, xx, xxi. Kislingbury, Lieut., 329. "Kitchen boxes," 131, 139. Kite, s.s., xxviii. Knitting breaks in trail, 207. Koldewey, 180. Kookan, 74. Koolatoonah, 142, 146, 148, 153, 155. Kooletah, 131. Koolootingwah, 235. Kudlooktoo, 213, 218, 220, 231, 253, 319. Kyoahpahdo, 65. Kyutah, 141, 218, 220, 223, 227. Labrador, 32, 34, 35, 77. Lady Franklin Bav, 78, 168, 329. Lake Hazen, 118, 127, 141, 179, 182, 188. Land in unknown Arctic, 339. Larned, Walter A., 76. Leads, 196, 207, 221, 222, 236-285, 305. Lemngwell, 345. Lena, xxv. Lieber, Cape, 102. Lincoln, Bay, 93, 106, 110, 112, 117, 118; Sea, 91, 342. Lions of the North, 79. Lockwood, xxiii, 321, 337. Long night, 162. Long, Thomas, xxiv. Low Point Light, 29. Lunar hours, 341. Lunitidal interval, 340. McClintock, Leopold, xxi. McClure, Robert, xxi. McCormick Bay, xxix. MacMillan, Prof. Donald B., career, 21; entertains Eskimos, 231; expedition to Clements Markham Inlet, 157; finds Greely relics, 329; his Eskimos overcome, 158; hunting walrus, 81, 82, 83; ill with grip, 128, 140; moving INDEX 371 supplies, 191; reached ship, 325; reconnoitering, 117; sent back for supplies, 227; sounding, 222; takes charge of sports, 185; tidal observa- tions, 167; turns back, 23G. Magellan, xxxii. Manchester Geographical Society, hon- orary membership, 365. Markham, Sir Clements, xxiii, xxx, 49, 180, 222, 337. Marvin, Prof. Ross G., appreciation of his work, 319; celebrating, 184; comes back with supplies, 235; delayed by leads, 308; facsimile of certificate, 356-358; facsimile of observations, 351-355; last message, 321; news of his death, 318; pioneer division, 237, 241, 243; replaces Alert's record, 129; returns to "Crane City," 223; return from Cape Bryant, 191; soundings, 222; starts for Greenland coast, 187; starts south, 253; takes supplies to Cape Belknap, 138; taking observa- tions, 168, 249, 252; teaching igloo building, 172; tidal igloo split by pressure, 177. May, Cape, 337. Mayen, Jan, xv. Mayflower, s.s., 26. Medals, 364, 365. Melville Bav, 36, 37, 39, 40, 53. Melville, G. W., xxv., 298. Meridian observations, method of taking, 288. Meteorological observations, 339. Meteorology, 346. Method for loading sledge, 209. Mikkelsen, 345. Mills, Hugh Robert, 180. Mongolian types among Eskimos, 49. Monument to Marvin, 321. Morris K. Jesup, Camp, 290; Cape, 13, 21, 253, 254, 295, 326, 328, 338, 348. Murphy, Denis, 23, 82, 326. Murphy, John, 20, 23, 75, 76. Musk-oxen, 110, 151-157, 183, 189- 191. Nansen, Dr., v, xxv, xxix, xxx, 12, 121, 180, 244, 251-254, 308. Nares, George, xxiii, xxx, 180. Narkeeta, s.s., 26. Narwhal, 87, 132. National Geographic Society, medal of, 365; report on Peary's record, 363; resolutions, 364. "Nautical Almanac and Navigator," 289. Navy League, 30. Nelson, xvi. Nerke, 74, 332. New Bedford, 27. Newfoundland, 76. New Land, xxiv. Newman Bay, 188. New Siberian Islands, 49, 344. New York, 2, 3, 6, 12, 25, 26, 34, 37, 42, 53, 76, 92, 111, 121. Nordenskjbld, 11, 180. North America, xvi, xix. Northeast Passage, xvi. Northern Greenland, 53. North Grant Land, 90, 128, 194. North Pole, defined, 291; flag, 335; hill, 309; magnetic xvii, xix. North River, 92. North Star, s.s., 27, 38. North Star Bav, 38, 73. North Sydney, 29. Northumberland Island, 73. Northwest Passage, xvi, xviii., xx, xxi. Norton, George S., 76. Norway, 345. Norwegian record, 250, 251. Note to Marvin, 232. Nova Zembla, xxvii. Nunatoksoah, 74. Observations, tidal and meteorological, 168, 188, 211, 243, 248, 266, 268, 284, 287, 289, 290, 318, 329, 337, 339, 342, 343, 350-355, 359, 362. Ocean, Arctic, 4, 49, 193, 216, 337, 344; Atlantic, xx, xxi, 343; Pacific, xxi. Odometer, 211. Ohlsen, 38. Onkilon, 49. "On the Polar Star in the Arctic Sea," 180. Onwagipsoo, 142. Ooblooyah, 117, 142, 143. 146, 147, 149, 153, 155, 167. Ookeyah, 117. Oomunnui, 73. Ooqueah, 52, 69, 73, 141, 203, 247, 253, 269, 271, 304. Ootah, 7, 69, 76, 117, 141, 235, 253, 267, 269, 271, 316. Oyster Bay, 26. Pacific Ocean, xxi. Panikpah, 141, 191, 230. 372 INDEX Paraselene, 175. Parhelion, 176. Parish, Henry, 16. Parr, 337. Parry, xvii, xviii, xix, xxiii, xxx; Pen- insula, 145, 159. Payer, xxvi, 180; Harbor, 92, 93, 94. Peabody, Geo., xxii. " Pearyaksoah," 52. Peary Arctic Club, 13, 15, 25, 26, 27, 95, 103, 124, 204, 253, 326, 334, 335. Peary Land, 342. Peary, Marie Ahnighito, 31, 130. Peary, Mrs. Robert E., xxix, 19, 26, 27, 29, 30, 45, 49, 93, 186, 294, 299, 334. Peary, Robert E., Jr., 29, 113. "Peary," sledge, 122, 135, 174, 217, 219, 237, 277. Peary's observation, April 6, facsimile, 362. "Peary system," 201. Percy, Charles, 20, 23, 32, 99, 113, 130, 164, 181, 184, 186, 326, 327. Percy, George, 23, 326. Permanent monument, 325. Petersen, 38, 128. Philadelphia Geographical Society, medal of, 365. Phipps, J. C, xvi. Piblokto, 166, 167, 178. Pilgrim Fathers, xv. Pingahshoo, 184. Pioneer party, 203-205, 214, 237, 241. Pitlekaj, 344, 345. Plan, 3. Plymouth Rock, xv. Point, Aldrich, 339, 340, 343, 345, 347 348; Amour Light, 33, 34; Barrow, 344-346; Good, 159; Moss, 4. Polar, Basin, 345; bear, 54, 75, 79, 130, 132, 146, 156, 169, 252, 309, 315; Sea, 5, 88, 90, 134, 193, 195, 206, 207, 237, 255, 262, 315, 320. Polaris, s.s., xxiii, 38, 91, 102. Polaris Promontory, 188, 190. Polar pack, 337. Poodloonah, 141,167, 230, 253. Porter Bay, 118, 120, 134, 140, 142, 143 276. Pressure ridges, 194, 196, 205, 207, 217, 250, 260, 261. Prince Patrick Island, 346. Princess Marie Bay, 100. Pritchard, William, 23, 75. Proteus, s.s., 91. Protococcus nivalis, 72. Rae, xx. Raven, Anton A., 16. Rawson, Cape, 120, 317. Record of 1906, 262. Recrossing the "big lead" in 1906, 41. Redcliffe Peninsula, 74. Red Cross flag, 296. "Red snow," 72. Regan, 331. Reindeer, 54, 110, 118, 143, 183. Relay parties, 187. Return in November, 1906, 32. Return of the sun, 227. Richardson, Cape, 134, 138, 140, 168. Robertson Bay, 74. Robeson Channel, 77, 102, 122, 134, 168, 188, 190, 328, 329, 342. Roosevelt, Mrs. Theodore, 26, 27. Roosevelt, the, after deckhouse, 31; aground, 115; American built, 19; at Lincoln Bay, 112; bucking ice, 100, 110; cairn, 129; caught off Victoria Head, 95; collision with berg, 89; damaged by ice, 114, 119; departure from, 213; Eskimo quarters on, 98, 124; goes on to Etah, 73; gripped in the ice, 177; igloos on deck, 175; in storm, 1906, 32; in winter quarters, 126; leaves Etah, 89; leaves Lincoln Bay, 118; leaves New York, 25; leaves Sydney, 29; leaving Cape York, 72; leaving winter quarters, 331; loaded deep, 77; loading walrus, 87; method of procedure, 91, 92; passing Cape Sabine, 94; passing Payer Harbor, 93; Peary's cabin on, 30; put in fighting trim, 75; reaches Cape Breton, 334; reaches Cape Sheridan, 120; reaches Cape York, 42; repairs and changes, 13; return to, 317, 325; return to Battle Harbor, 334; standing by hunters, 80; steam- ing northward, 36; unloading, 122; visits Eagle Island, 27; winter home on the, 162, 166. Roosevelt, Theodore, viii, 26, 27, 30, 339; his good-by to Peary, vii. Ross, James Clark, xix, 334. Ross, Capt. John, 72, xviii. Route of return in 1906, 304. Royal Belgian Geographical Society, medal of, 365. Royal Geographical Society of Antwerp, medal of, 365. Royal Geographical Society of London, 49; medal of, 365. INDEX 373 Royal Italian Geographical Society, medal of, 365. Royal Netherlands Geographical Society of Amsterdam, honorary member- ship, 365. Royal Scottish Geographical Society, special trophy, 365. Sabine, Cape, 39, 89, 94, 95, 124, 332. Sagamore Hill, 27. Sail Harbor, 134, 142, 145, 155. Salvo Island, 72. Sanderson Hope, xv. Sandy Hook, 168. Saumarez, Cape, 74, 332. Scoresby, William, xxvii. Scotch whalers, 37. Scott, Banks, 23, 326. Scott, Capt., 180. Seal, 65, 250. Secretary of Commerce and Labor, 339. Seegloo, 69, 73, 141, 167, 203, 234, 269, 271, 299. Sheelah, s.s., 334. Sheridan, Cape, 5, 6, 38, 77, 88-129, 157, 168, 178, 193, 213, 325, 330, 332, 339, 349. Siberia, xxiv. 49, 344, 345. "Siege of the South Pole," 180. Skeans, Patrick, 23, 326. Sledge, Eskimo, 122, 135, 217, 219, 237, 277; "Peary," 122, 135, 174, 217, 219, 237, 277. Smith Sound, xxvii, 3, 5, 76, 77, 124, 180, 342, 343. Sonntag, 38, 321. Sounding apparatus, 210. Soundings, 210, 222, 227, 236, 246, 262, 304, 309, 329, 337, 338. "Southern Cross Expedition to the Antarctic," 180. Spitzbergen Islands, xv, xvii, 341, 342 St. Charles, Cape, 34. St. George, Cape, 35. Stepping Stone Light, 26. "Storm camp," 243, 306. Straits of Belle Isle, 3, 32. Styx, 225, 226. Summer solstice, 330. Supplies, 23. Supporting party, 204, 206. Sydney, C. B., 3, 6, 23, 28, 29, 32, 42, 77, 299, 334. Tampa, Florida, 42. Tasmania, xix. Tawchingwah, 141. Temperature tables, 346, 347. Tents, 139. Teplitz Bay, 345. Terror, s.s., xix. Thank God Harbor, 102. Thanksgiving Day, 179. Thomas Hubbard, Cape, 21, 110, 295, 325. Tide, staves, 339: table, 340. Tiger of the North, 79. Tigress, ship, xxiii. Tittmann, Supt. O. H, 337, 364. Tookoomah, 187. Tornarsuk, 64, 147, 148, 150, 215, 219. Toxingwa, 158. Transportation of supplies, 130, 134, 191, 327. Tupiks, 44, 54, 58, 59. Turnavik Island, 35. Tyrian, s.s., 334. Unexplored inlet, 154. Union, Cape, 110, 118, 188, 332. United States, 170, 316. Victoria Head, 95. Victory, s.s., xviii. " Voyage of the Discovery" 180. " Voyage to the Polar Sea," 180. Wakiva, s.s., 34. Walrus, xvi, 65, 77, 79, 80-87, 169, 333. Walrus-hunting, 80-87. Wardwell, George A., 20, 23, 101, 326. Weekly bill of fare, 164. Weesockasee, 158. Wesharkoupsi, 84, 85, 142, 145, 168, 235. Weyprecht, xxvi, 180. Whale-boat, 29, 31, 79, 80, 84, 95, 123. Whale factories, 34. Whale Sound, 3, 54, 74, 79, 87, 328. Whales, xvi. White Nile, viii. Whitnev, Harry, 75, 333. Willoughby, 321. Windward, s.s., 93, 130. Winter solstice, 184. Wiseman, John, 23, 326. Wolf, 54. Wolf, Dr., 20. Wolstenholm Sound, 73, 79. "World's Ensign of Liberty and Peace," 296. Wrangell Land, xxiv. York, Cape, 32, 35, 39-46, 70-73, 271, 334. RESEHT OF $750 DUXV'T CHARGE TV. At IlKIfS MITTEE CF.XT; WAS FRIEND OF LOUD'S. Just how Captain Peary, discoverer of the north pole, came from his coun- try camp in Maine to Bay City for no other purpose than to deliver two lec- tures for not one penny of recompense — for Captain Peary refused to take a penny — is a rather unusual story. In coming to Bay City, the doughty cap- tain paid a debt of gratitude to Con- gressman Loud, and just for good meas- ure he threw off everything in the way of a charge. So far Peary has been receiving from §500 per lecture up, and he had just quit a tour for a rest, when the invitation from Bay City came. When the local committee thought of Peary as a star attraction, someone suggested that Congressman Loud, be- ing on the naval committee, and thus one of those who has to do with the navy in congress, might be of some as- sistance in inducing Peary to come. And a letter to the congressman brought a surprise. In effect the congressman said that as a member of the naval committee, and concerned in the naval matters af- fecting Captain Peary, the latter had become acquainted with him and that he, the congressman, had done the cap- tain some favors. He'd demand pay- ment by requesting 'that he talk to the teachers of Michigan at Bay City. The congressman wrote and the captain replied at once that he would only be too glad of the chance to show his friendship for Congressman Loud — not only by quitting Lis summer camp — but by asking for nothing more than his bare expenses. ', It cost the citizens' committee less than $50 to get not only one lecture, but two — one at the armory and the other in Washington theater. tain Peary mentioned the fact of his friendship for the congressman while here., and cited his case as an example of where a congressman was worth about $750, which would have been his >r doubling on a lecture, as was done here, to the cit- izens' committee. o mM % w mvA/ ■,,,...